Early Identification of High-Risk Factors for Upper Gastrointestinal Bleeding

To identify simple and accurate pre-endoscopy risk factors for early identification of high-risk upper gastrointestinal bleeding.

Patients who were admitted to Suzhou Hospital of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine from January 1, 2016, to December 31, 2019, due to upper gastrointestinal bleeding were retrieved, and the detailed clinical data of the above patients were collected. Patients with a definite diagnosis of bleeding from esophageal/and gastric varices were assigned to the high-risk group. Patients with bleeding not caused by varices were divided into a high-risk and a low-risk group according to the Forrest grading and scoring standard (high-risk group Forrest Ia-IIb, low-risk group Forrest IIc-III). Univariate analysis, t-test, chi-square test, binary logistic regression, ROC curve (Receiver-operating characteristic curve), etc. were employed for analysis in order to identify some simple and accurate risk factors for high-risk upper digestion tract bleeding before endoscopy.

A total of 916 patients were collected. Three risk factors among the screened risk factors (1) hemoglobin ≤ 85 g/L, (2) vomiting red blood, and (3) "red bloody stool" were analyzed by ROC curve analysis. The specificities of each factor were 78.4%, 94.5%, and 96.7%, respectively, and the sensitivities were 71.8%, 55.9%, and 23.1%, respectively. We also derived a risk prediction scoring system for the three factors that meet the high risk such as (1) hemoglobin ≤ 83 g/L, (2)vomiting red blood, and (3) "red bloody stool." The area under the ROC curve (AUROC), sensitivity, and specificity were 0.877, 0.904, and 0.746.

Hemoglobin ≤ 85 g/L, vomiting red blood, and red bloody stool were included in a simple scoring standard for predicting high-risk UGIB patients before endoscopy. The new risk prediction scoring system requires only three indicators and has the advantages of high accuracy, short time-consuming, and easy application.