Major gastrointestinal bleeding and antithrombotics: Characteristics and management

BACKGROUND: There are few reports on major gastrointestinal (GI) bleeding among patients receiving an antithrombotic. AIM: To describe clinical characteristics, bleeding locations, management and in-hospital mortality related to these events. METHODS: Over a three-year period, we prospectively identified 1080 consecutive adult patients admitted in two tertiary care hospitals between January 1, 2013 and December 31, 2015 for major GI bleeding while receiving an antithrombotic. The bleeding events were medically validated. Clinical characteristics, causative lesions, management and fatalities were described. The distribution of antithrombotics prescribed was compared across the bleeding lesions identified. RESULTS: dual antiplatelet agents. CONCLUSION: We showed a higher rate of bleeding lesion identification and suggested a different pattern of antithrombotic exposure between upper and lower GI lesion locations and between gastro-duodenal ulcer and other identified upper GI causes of bleeding. Management was similar across antithrombotics and in-hospital mortality was low (5.95%).