[Electrocardiographic changes related to acute upper gastrointestinal hemorrhage]

Upper gastrointestinal bleeding is a common cause of medical attention, with a mortality in Mexico of 8.5%. Our main objective was to determine the association of this pathology with cardiac conduction disturbances and other clinical variables.

We reviewed the electrocardiograms and files of patients attended for acute upper gastrointestinal bleeding at the Internal Medicine Service of the National Medical Center "20 de Noviembre", they must have had a previous normal electrocardiogram; excluding those with severe hemorrhage, this means, presented with hypotension managed with intravenous fluids and/or vasoactive drugs. Statistical analysis was performed using the SPSS10 program.

56 patients were included, 34 women and 22 men; 60.7% were older than 70 years. We report an association between acute upper gastrointestinal bleeding and electrocardiographic changes, principally right bundle branch block in 30.35% of cases.