Objectives:

To determine the causes of upper gastrointestinal bleeding in patients who underwent digestive endoscopy and the treatment performed in the digestive endoscopy service of the Hospital Nacional de Itauguá a in the period from March 2020 to December 2020.

Materials and methods:

Retrospective, descriptive and cross-sectional study made up of 251 patients who required digestive endoscopy due to upper gastrointestinal bleeding registered in the digestive endoscopy service of the National Hospital of Itauguá in the period from March to December 2020.

Results:

In this study, 251 patients were included, with an age range of 18 to 89 years; 69.7% were men. The most common cause of bleeding waspeptic ulcer disease (27.8%), followed by esophageal and gastroesophageal varices (25.8%), duodenal ulcers (19.5 %), acute erosive gastritis (10.3%), and acute erosive hemorrhagic esophagitis (9.1%). Less frequent causes were bleeding from intestinal neoplasms occurred, cameron lesions, antral vascular ectasia, Mallory-Weiss syndrome, and hemobilia. The treatment for gastric and duodenal ulcers was vasoactive substances alone (1:10,000 adrenaline) or combined with bipolar; for esophageal varices, banding ligatures were used and for gastroesophageal sclerosing substances (polidocanol). Gastric ulcers treated with epinephrine alone presented recurrence in 4 patients.

Conclusions:

Upper gastrointestinal bleeding is perhaps one of the most frequent indications for an endoscopic study and it is also one of the areas where its use has shown a greater impact. It is also a frequent cause of emergency consultation and in general there are wide variations in terms of its etiology and frequency, so a consensus on its management can have a great impact due to its generalized applicability.

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