The effect of octreotide as an adjunct treatment in active nonvariceal upper gastrointestinal bleeding

The aim of this study was to determine the effect ofoctreotide on active or recent gastrointestinal bleeding from benign peptic ulcers.

This is a prospective, randomized study including 110 patients with gastric or duodenal peptic ulcers presenting with active spurting or oozing bleeding or nonbleeding visible vessel. All patients were subjected to endoscopic hemostasis by injection of noradrenaline, and they were then randomized to either receive octreotide (55 patients) or placebo (55 patients). The groups did not differ with respect to age, sex, use of nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs, previous history of ulcer or bleeding, Helicobacter pylori infection, site, and severity of bleeding.

The rebleeding rate was 36% in placebo and 32% in octreotide group, which does not present a statistically significant difference. Surgical intervention was required for 18 patients (32.7%) in the placebo group and for 16 patients (29%) in the octreotide group. The mortality rate was 2 patients (3.6%) in the placebo and 4 patients (7.2%) in the octreotide group. All the above presented no statistical difference. In addition, there was no statistically significant difference between the 2 groups with respect to the number of blood units transfused and hospital stay.

The use of octreotide as an adjunct treatment in patients with acutely bleeding benign peptic ulcer or/and visible vessel did not seem to offer significant benefits regarding their outcome.