Transcatheter arterial embolization for massive bleeding from duodenal ulcers not controlled by endoscopic hemostasis

We evaluated the efficacy of transcatheter arterial embolization (TAE) in patients in whom endoscopic hemostasis of a massively bleeding duodenal ulcer failed.

TAE was performed in 11 patients with endoscopically uncontrollable massively bleeding duodenal ulcers, and the results and long-time outcome were studied. Two additional cases of failed endoscopic hemostasis were treated surgically without TAE. The entire group of 13 patients represented 5% of endoscopically treated duodenal ulcers and 0.6% of all cases with upper gastrointestinal bleeding who underwent emergency endoscopy (n = 2073). All but one of these 13 patients had concomitant disease.

Arteriograms performed before TAE revealed extravasation of contrast material around the gastroduodenal artery (GDA), the anterior superior pancreaticoduodenal artery (ASPD), or the posterior superior pancreaticoduodenal artery (PSPD) in six of 11 cases. We failed to stop the bleeding in one patient, in whom only the common hepatic artery side of the GDA bleeding site was embolized; this patient died. TAE was successful in the other ten patients, in whom the long stretch of the GDA, including the ASPD and PSPD, was embolized around the bleeding site. Two surgically treated patients died within a week.

Our findings indicate that TAE may induce hemostasis in 90% of patients with serious concomitant diseases who have endoscopically uncontrollable massive bleeding from duodenal ulcers.