Management of acute gastrointestinal blood loss: summary of SIGN guidelines

doi:10.1136/bmj.a1832

Published 10 October 2008, doi:10.1136/bmj.a1832
Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a1832

Practice

Guidelines

Management of acute gastrointestinal blood loss: summary of SIGN guidelines

K Palmer, consultant gastroenterologist¹, M Nairn, programme manager², on behalf of the Guideline Development Group

¹ Western General Hospital, Crewe Road, Edinburgh EH4 2XU, ² Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network, Edinburgh EH7 5EA

Correspondence to: M Nairn moray.nairn@nhs.net

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Acute gastrointestinal bleeding is a common major medical emergency,accounting for about 7600 admissions to hospitals each yearin Scotland. Overall mortality of patients admitted to hospitalbecause of acute gastrointestinal bleeding is 7%, rising to26% in patients who bleed during admissions to hospital forother reasons.¹ This article summarises the most recent guidancefrom the Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN)on the management of acute upper and lower gastrointestinalblood loss that is sufficiently severe to lead to emergencyadmission to hospital (see the full SIGN guidance, guideline105, at www.sign.ac.uk).

SIGN recommendations are based on systematic reviews of bestavailable evidence, and the strength of the evidence is indicatedas A, B, C, or D (fig 1). Recommended best practice ("good practicepoints") based on the clinical experience of the guideline developmentgroup is also indicated (as GPP).

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Fig 1 Explanation of SIGN grades of . . . [Full text of this article]

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