[Serum pepsinogen I levels in bleeding duodenal ulcer]

We compared serum Pepsinogen I (PG I) levels in 25 bleeding duodenal ulcer patients, 25 non bleeding duodenal ulcer (DU) patients and 25 healthy subjects, matched by age and sex. Mean values of PG I in bleeding DU patients were slightly higher than those in non bleeding DU patients, such difference was not statistically significant. Nevertheless, it must be pointed out that 88% of hemorrhagic patients had increased PG I levels compared to 72% of non hemorrhagic patients. The difference between these two groups and the healthy group was highly significant (p < 0.001). We conclude that determination of serum PG I levels is a sensitive complementary diagnostic test in the ulcerous patient. Its capacity, however, to discriminate between bleeding and non bleeding DU patients failed to be found in these study. So, hemorrhage is always a challenge in the natural history of the duodenal ulcer patient.