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Performing endoscopy in patients with upper gastrointestinal bleeding (UGIB) requires optimal visualization. Prokinetic drugs have been recommended to clear the stomach of blood prior to endoscopy.
To identify pre-endoscopy predictors of poor visibility for which prokinetic drugs could be useful, investigators in Korea retrospectively reviewed records of 220 patients (75% men) who underwent endoscopy for UGIB. Two thirds of these patients were used to develop a decision-tree model to predict poor visibility and the remaining one third constituted a validation cohort.
In multivariate analysis, nasogastric lavage showing blood or coffee grounds and earlier time of endoscopy were each associated with poor visibility. The decision tree comprised …