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Most studies of upper gastrointestinal bleeding (UGIB) have focused on the ability to assess risk for rebleeding based upon the appearance of peptic ulcers. Recently, investigators in Italy developed a new scoring system, based on risk factors for 30-day mortality, to predict the outcome of patients with UGIB (JW Gastroenterol Jul 9 2010). Now, using data from that study of prospectively enrolled patients from 36 different hospitals, the same group has assessed mortality from different causes of UGIB, particularly nonulcer versus ulcer, in 3207 patients.
The overall 30-day mortality rate from UGIB was 4.5%. Mortality risk was similar for nonulcer (4.1%) and ulcer (3.9%) causes of bleeding but higher when the cause was neoplasia (9.8%). Howev…