Endoscopy for Upper Gastrointestinal Bleeding in a Tertiary Hospital in Kaduna, North-West Nigeria: Experience and Findings

BACKGROUND: Upper gastrointestinal bleeding (UGIB) is a common medical emergency and upper gastrointestinal endoscopy (UGIE) makes diagnosis and treatment possible; performing this procedure within 24 h of bleeding is considered the standard of care for managing this condition. Access to upper endoscopy improves the prognosis of the disease. METHODS: We present our experience and findings of performing UGIE in patients referred for UGIB to a new endoscopy unit in a tertiary center in North-West Nigeria. The age, gender, reasons for referral, interval between endoscopy, and last known episode of bleeding and endoscopic findings were obtained from endoscopy records. RESULTS: We performed UGIE in 204 patients for UGIB over a 7-year period: Mean age 45.5 years (range 10–88 years), 61.8% male, 54.8% <50 years. Most patients (81.3%) had endoscopy seven or more days after the last known episode of bleeding and none had endoscopy within 24 h. Esophageal and gastric varices were found in almost 30% of patients while peptic ulcer disease was found in 23%. Portal hypertensive gastropathy was found in 12.7% of patients all of whom also had esophageal or gastric varices. Gastric mucosal erosions (7.4%) and gastric malignancy (6.4%) were other notable findings. No significant abnormalities were detected in 11.8% of patients. CONCLUSION: Bleeding from esophageal/gastric varices and peptic ulcer disease were the most common finding in our patients. There was delay in performing endoscopy and improving access and training for endoscopy will go a long way in addressing some of the challenges we identified.