Clinical risk stratification for gastrointestinal hemorrhage: still no consensus.
A lack of consensus exists in the pre-endoscopic risk stratification of patients with upper or lower gastrointestinal hemorrhage. The work by Das and colleagues in the previous issue of Critical Care serves to externally validate the BLEED criteria. Their results suggest that hemodynamically stable patients without evidence of ongoing bleeding or unstable comorbidities may be at lower risk for hospital complications. While their results reinforce previous studies, further investigation is needed before comprehensive practice guidelines can be established.
Wira
Charles
C
Department of Surgery, Section of Emergency Medicine, Yale School of Medicine, 464 Congress Ave, Suite 260, New Haven, CT 06519, USA. charles.wira@yale.edu
Sather
John
J
D006471:Gastrointestinal Hemorrhage / Q000175:diagnosis*; D006801:Humans; D010043:Outcome and Process Assessment, Health Care; D018570:Risk Assessment; D014218:Triage