[Emergency endoscopy in patients with liver cirrhosis]

A report is given about emergency endoscopy in 389 patients because of bleeding from the upper gastrointestinal tract; 60 of these patients had cirrhosis of the liver as confirmed by biopsy. In the total group 17.4% were found to have bleeding from esophagus varices, in the cirrhotic group the incidence was 53%. Erosive lesions of the stomach came second in incidence, accounting for 27% of the cases in the latter group. In 60% of patients with cirrhosis, who had had acute bleeding, esophageal varices were present in abundance, whereas only 27% of patients without bleeding did have such excessive formation of varices. Thrombotest and thrombocyte count were equal in both groups. In 50% of 133 patients with cirrhosis of the liver without acute bleeding complications, a second potential source of bleeding beside esophageal varices could be detected. This underlines the importance of emergency endoscopy in patients with cirrhosis of the liver suffering from acute upper gastrointestinal bleeding.