[Possible relationship between psychological stress and bleeding erosive upper gastrointestinal lesions]

The development of gastric and/or duodenal erosive lesions with bleeding is often related to an identified pathogenic factor such as the use of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs or alcohol. Extreme physiologic stress has also been shown to cause similar erosive lesions, known as "stress ulcer syndrome." We describe a 42-year-old woman, who over the course of a few months had 6 episodes of upper gastrointestinal bleeding due to various gastroduodenal erosive lesions. Prior to all these episodes she reported anxiety and stress of varied origins, but no other pathogenic factor was identified.