Loading...
Every experienced gastroenterologist has encountered patients who have refractory bleeding from gastrointestinal vascular malformations and are dependent on iron replacement or blood transfusion. Now, in an open-label, randomized trial, researchers in China investigated the efficacy and safety of administering thalidomide in 55 patients with bleeding that was unresponsive or unsuited to treatment by means such as endoscopy, colonoscopy, and double-balloon enteroscopy. Twenty-eight of the participants were transfusion dependent before randomization; 3 with gastric antral vascular ectasia (GAVE) had failed to respond to argon plasma coagulation treatment. Exclusion criteria included portal hypertension, severe comorbidities, peripheral neurop…