title: Argon plasma coagulation in the management of symptomatic gastrointestinal angiodysplasia: experience in 69 consecutive patients.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Gastrointestinal angiodysplasias are associated with a high bleeding risk.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  to evaluate the efficiency of argon plasma electrocoagulation in the treatment of gastrointestinal angiodysplasia and to identify predictive factors of success of this technique.
  
  
  METHODS
  Retrospective study of patients with bleeding gastrointestinal angiodysplasia treated with argon plasma electrocoagulation in the digestive endoscopy unit of the military hospital in Tunis between January 2000 and December 2011.
  
  
  RESULTS
  69 patients with a mean age of 68.7 years were included.The endoscopic treatment resulted in a rise in hemoglobin value from 7.3 to 9.3 g/ dl (p = 0.0001) and a decrease of transfusion requirements from 2.5 to 0.1 units of packed red cells (p <0.0001). It allowed to avoid surgery for 93.6% of patients with complex medicalhistory. Recurrence of bleeding was observed in 33.3% of patients after a mean time of 12.3 months. In a multivariate analysis, no factors were independently associated with the recurrence of bleeding. The overall survival without rebleeding at 1 and 2 years were 50% and 42% respectively.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Argon plasma coagulation is an easy, effective and safe treatment of bleeding angiodysplasia. This technique is particularly interesting for patients with multiple medical problems, where surgical treatment could be burdened by significant morbidity and mortality risk.
authors.forename: Sondes
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bizid
authors.forename: Mériam
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sabbah
authors.forename: Hatem
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ben Abdallah
authors.forename: Wafa
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Haddad
authors.forename: Riadh
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Bouali
authors.forename: Nabil
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Abdelli