Novel risk score for acute upper gastrointestinal bleeding in elderly patients: a single-centre retrospective study

OBJECTIVES: Acute upper gastrointestinal bleeding (UGIB) is a common reason for emergency hospital admission. Identifying low-risk patients suitable for outpatient management is a clinical and research priority. This study aimed to develop a simple risk score to identify elderly patients with UGIB for whom hospital admission is not required. DESIGN: This was a single-centre retrospective study. SETTING: This study was conducted at Zhongda Hospital affiliated with Southeast University in China. PARTICIPANTS: Patients from January 2015 to December 2020 for the derivation cohort and from January 2021 to June 2022 for the validation cohort were enrolled in this study. A total of 822 patients (derivation cohort=606 and validation cohorts=216) were included in this study. Patients aged ≥65 years with coffee-grounds vomiting, melena or/and haematemesis were included in the analysis. Patients admitted but had UGIB or transferred between hospitals were excluded. METHODS: Baseline demographic characteristics and clinical parameters were recorded at the first visit. Data were collected from electronic records and databases. Multivariable logistic regression modelling was performed to identify predictors of safe discharge. RESULTS: 304/606 (50.2%) and 132/216 (61.1%) patients were not safely discharged in the derivation and validation cohorts, respectively. A clinical risk score of five variables was entered into UGIB risk stratification: Charlson Comorbidity Index >2, systolic blood pressure <100 mm Hg, haemoglobin <100 g/L, blood urea nitrogen ≥6.5 mmol/L, albumin <30 g/L. The optimal cut-off value was ≥1, the sensitivity was 97.37% and the specificity was 19.21% for predicting the inability to discharge safely. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve was 0.806. CONCLUSIONS: A novel clinical risk score with good discriminative performance was developed to identify elderly patients with UGIB who were suitable for safe outpatient management. This score can reduce unnecessary hospitalisations.