Overall mortality among patients surviving an episode of peptic ulcer bleeding.
OBJECTIVE
The authors investigated whether patients who have survived an acute episode of peptic ulcer bleeding (PUB) have an excess long term all cause mortality compared with the general population free of PUB.


METHODS
Follow up study of previously identified cohort of patients with a PUB episode and a general population cohort.


METHODS
The source population included all people aged 30 to 89 years, registered with general practitioners in the United Kingdom.


METHODS
All patients alive one month after the PUB episode constituted the cohort of PUB patients (n = 978). A control group of 5000 people was randomly sampled from the source population. The same eligibility criteria as for patients with PUB were applied to the control series. Also, controls had to be free of PUB before start date.


RESULTS
Relative risk of mortality among PUB patients was 2.1, 95% CI: 1.7, 2.6) compared with the general population. This increased mortality risk occurred mainly in the patients less than 60 years old. No difference was observed between men and women. The excess mortality was not only circumscribed to deaths attributable to recurrent gastrointestinal bleed, but also cardiovascular, cancer and other causes.


CONCLUSIONS
People who have survived an acute episode of PUB have a reduced long term survival compared with the general population. This reduction was stronger among middle age patients than in the elderly.
Ruigómez
A
A
Centro Español de Investigación Farmacoepidemiológica, Madrid, Spain.
García Rodríguez
L A
LA
Hasselgren
G
G
Johansson
S
S
Wallander
M A
MA
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002423:Cause of Death; D015331:Cohort Studies; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010438:Peptic Ulcer Hemorrhage / Q000401:mortality*; D012307:Risk Factors; D017741:Survivors; D006113:United Kingdom / Q000453:epidemiology