Abstract

Aim: To identify the causes and factors impacting mortality in geriatric patients with upper gastrointestinal bleeding. Material and Methods: Patients over 65 years old admitted for upper gastrointestinal bleeding between November 2010-11 at Izmir Tepecik Education and Research Hospital were analyzed retrospectively. Statistical data evaluated with SPSS 11.0 program and p value <0.05 was accepted as statistically significant. Findings: Totally 250 patients were included in this study. Mean age was 76,5±6,7. 36% of patients (90) were females, and 64%(160) were males.79% of the patients have had accompanying disorder, of which the most frequent (49%) was hypertention, second (26%) was coronary artery disease.82.4% of the patinets were using medicinal drug, of which the most frequently (%72) used drugs were for chronic disorders (diabetes mellitus and hypertension) and 33.6% of patients were using asetyl salisylic acid.Risky drugs for gastrointestinal bleeding was being used by 51.6% of the patients.Endoscopic evaluation showed that 51.2 percent of these patients had peptic ulcer, 15.2 percent had erosive gastritis, %7.2 had malignancy, 7.2 percent had esophageal varices. Most of the detected peptic ulcers were of Forrest type 1b.The mortality rates in patient without chronic illnesses was 3.4 percent; on the other hand it was 8 percent in patients with chronic illness.This difference was statistically significant.The mortality rates in chronic drug using patients was 8.1 percent; and in no drug using patients was 4.9 percent. Conclusion: Our study shows that the most frequent cause of upper gastrointestinal bleeding in older population is peptic ulcer. The mortality rate is increased with increasing age, and over 85 years old rising to 30 percent. Also accompanying chronic disorders and chronic drug usage were found to increase the mortality rates.