[Emergency fibroendoscopy. Basic exploration in the diagnosis of upper digestive bleeding (experience in 200 cases)]

Prognosis in upper gastrointestinal hemorrage (UGIH) depends mostly upon an early diagnosis. The addition of an around the clock endoscopist on duty in the hospital was decided upon to provide inmediate evaluation of all UGIH. The team performed 200 endoscopies, many within the first 12 hours and all of them before 24 hours of bleeding. Endoscopy was unsuccessful in 5 out of 205 attempts. The usefulness of the method was demonstrated as in 94.55% of the patients the cause of the bleeding was established. Peptic ulcers was the cause in 51.5% of the patients and acute inflammatory disease in 14.5%. Esophageal varices were found in 10%, but it is important that we observed 12 patients with non-bleeding varices in which the bleeding was in relation to associated pathologies.