Hemorrhagic ulcers after Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami: features of post-disaster hemorrhagic ulcers.
BACKGROUND
We investigated the characteristic features and treatment of hemorrhagic peptic ulcers after the Great East Japan Earthquake, which occurred on 11 March 2011.


METHODS
Clinical data of patients with hemorrhagic peptic ulcers were retrospectively collected during the 3 months after the earthquake from seven major hospitals in the middle of the stricken area, and were compared with those during the same period of the previous year.


RESULTS
After the earthquake, the number of hemorrhagic ulcers increased 2.2 fold as compared with the previous year, and gastric ulcers were significantly more frequent compared with duodenal ulcers (p < 0.05) and more often presented multiple forms (p < 0.05). Nonetheless, the proportion of re-bleeding cases after hemostasis treatment (8% in 2010 vs. 5% in 2011) or total mortality rate (2.5% in 2010 vs. 1.2% in 2011) was rather lower after the earthquake compared with that of the previous year.


CONCLUSIONS
We clarified that post-disaster hemorrhagic ulcers existed frequently in the stomach, often as multiple ulcers at the same time. The Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami caused many cases of hemorrhagic ulcer. However, because of the high success rate of endoscopic hemostasis, the mortality remained as low as in the previous year. Our present study provides important information for large-scale disasters which can occur anywhere.
Division of Gastroenterology, Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, Sendai, Japan. kanno.takeshi@med.tohoku.ac.jp
Takeshi
T
Kanno
Katsunori
K
Iijima
Yasuhiko
Y
Abe
Tomoyuki
T
Koike
Norihiro
N
Shimada
Tatsuya
T
Hoshi
Nozomu
N
Sano
Motoki
M
Ohyauchi
Hirotaka
H
Ito
Tomoaki
T
Atsumi
Hidetomo
H
Konishi
Sho
S
Asonuma
Tooru
T
Shimosegawa
D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D004381:Duodenal Ulcer / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000628:therapy; D055866:Earthquakes; D005260:Female; D016558:Hemostasis, Endoscopic; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010438:Peptic Ulcer Hemorrhage / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000401:mortality / Q000628:therapy; D011379:Prognosis; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D013276:Stomach Ulcer / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000628:therapy; D057192:Tsunamis