Gastrointestinal bleeding is common

BMJ 1995;311:391 (5 August)

Letters

Gastrointestinal bleeding is common

EDITOR,--In their editorial on non-steroidal anti-inflammatorydrugs and elderly patients D N Bateman and J G Kennedy erroneouslyquote an incidence of upper gastrointestinal bleeding of 210cases per million people over 60 compared with 35 per millionunder 60,¹ from a study carried out in our department.² In fact,the annual incidences in our study were 10 times these--thatis, 2100 and 350 per million people over 60 and under 60, respectively.Although these rates may show wide international variability,they emphasise the public health impact of gastrointestinalbleeding compared with that of other severe diseases of whichanalgesics and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs are potentialcauses.

The annual incidence of end stage renal disease, another possibleadverse effect of prolonged exposure to analgesics and non-steroidalanti-inflammatory drugs, is of the order of 100 per millionpeople,³ and, according to the data from two case-control studies,analgesic drugs account for . . . [Full text of this article]

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