The efficiency of intragastric norepinephrine administration in gastrointestinal bleeding in 50 patients

The results of the treatment of 50 patients with serious digestive tract bleeding by intragastric or intraperitoneal norepinephrine administration are reported. The doses of norepinephrine, mostly smaller than those used by Le Veen et al. who developed the method in 1972, ranged from 4 mg (42 patients) to 8 mg, given in 150 ml NaHCO3 solution, 14 g/1000 ml at 4 degrees C, in cases of intragastric administration. Although the hemorrhages and the underlying diseases were serious, 41 final and 6 temporary successes were obtained (94%), with 38 immediate and 8 late results and only 3 failures (6%), that could be explained by the anatomical situation; 17 patients died (34%), out of these only 4 because of hemorrhage (8%) that were accounted for anatomo-pathologically, as well as critically ill patients, while the other deaths occurred late, mostly due to septic shock. The efficiency in stress ulcers was remarkable. Although, in the author's opinion, the method is empirical, it has given outstandingly good results in the case of life threatening hemorrhages, with no side effects in the patients investigated.