Acute Gastrointestinal Bleeding

Acute gastrointestinal (GI) bleeding accounts for over 300,000 hospitalizations per year and has high morbidity and mortality in those who go undiagnosed. In Dr. Karen Kim's Acute Gastrointestinal Bleeding: Diagnosis and Treatment, leading experts in the fields of gastroenterology, surgery, and radiology comprehensively review the pathophysiology, diagnosis, management, and treatment of acute bleeding disorders of the GI tract. The authors break down acute bleeding into upper and lower GI tract sources and provide a differential diagnosis for each disease, evidence-based algorithms for clinical practice, treatment modalities for its management, and standards of care. General approaches to the acute GI bleeding patient are discussed in terms of supportive care, early detection, and determination of upper vs lower GI bleed, when to transfuse, as well as early predictors of morbidity and mortality. The authors outline the many dilemmas faced by physicians in their approach to their patients, such as localization of the bleeding source (upper vs lower), the need and timing for emergency endoscopy, and the timing for radiologic intervention and/or surgery. §Authoritative and clinically focused, Acute Gastrointestinal Bleeding: Diagnosis and Treatment offers practicing clinicians-including primary care and emergency physicians, gastroenterologists, and those in clinical training-a comprehensive, up-to-date overview of this extremely common, and sometimes fatal, medical problem.