Future innovative therapies to treat upper gastrointestinal bleeding

The age of patients admitted to hospital for gastrointestinal bleeding will probably continue to rise, pushing the mortality rate upward, and the use of arthritic and blood thinning drugs will increase the incidence of gastrointestinal bleeding, especially in elderly patients. A slow decrease may be seen in the incidence of Helicobacter-induced ulceration and consequent bleeding in the west. New vaccine development has the best chance of reducing upper gastrointestinal bleeding worldwide, especially that caused by viral infections. Innovations in mechanical and compressive thermal hemostasis offer the best prospects for improvement in outcome from flexible therapeutic endoscopy.