Skip to main content

Advertisement

Log in

Risk Factors for Nosocomial Gastrointestinal Bleeding and Use of Acid-Suppressive Medication in Non-Critically Ill Patients

Journal of General Internal Medicine Aims and scope Submit manuscript

An Erratum to this article was published on 16 April 2013

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND

It is unknown whether there exist certain subsets of patients outside of the intensive care unit in whom the risk of nosocomial gastrointestinal bleeding is high enough that prophylactic use of acid-suppressive medication may be warranted.

OBJECTIVE

To identify risk factors for nosocomial gastrointestinal bleeding in a cohort of non-critically ill hospitalized patients, develop a risk scoring system, and use this system to identify patients most likely to benefit from acid suppression.

DESIGN

Cohort study.

PATIENTS

Adult patients admitted to an academic medical center from 2004 through 2007. Admissions with a principal diagnosis of gastrointestinal bleeding or a principal procedure code for cardiac catheterization were excluded.

MAIN MEASURES

Medication, laboratory, and other clinical data were obtained through electronic data repositories maintained at the medical center. The main outcome measure—nosocomial gastrointestinal bleeding occurring outside of the intensive care unit—was ascertained via ICD-9-CM coding and confirmed by chart review.

KEY RESULTS

Of 75,723 admissions (median age = 56 years; 40 % men), nosocomial gastrointestinal bleeding occurred in 203 (0.27 %). Independent risk factors for bleeding included age > 60 years, male sex, liver disease, acute renal failure, sepsis, being on a medicine service, prophylactic anticoagulants, and coagulopathy. Risk of bleeding increased as clinical risk score derived from these factors increased. Acid-suppressive medication was utilized in > 50 % of patients in each risk stratum. Our risk scoring system identified a high risk group in whom the number-needed-to-treat with acid-suppressive medication to prevent one bleeding event was < 100.

CONCLUSIONS

In this large cohort of non-critically ill hospitalized patients, we identified several independent risk factors for nosocomial gastrointestinal bleeding. With further validation at other medical centers, the risk model derived from these factors may help clinicians to direct acid-suppressive medication to those most likely to benefit..

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Figure 1.

Similar content being viewed by others

REFERENCES

  1. Cook DJ, Reeve BK, Guyatt GH, et al. Stress ulcer prophylaxis in critically ill patients. Resolving discordant meta-analyses. JAMA. 1996;275(4):308–314.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Herzig SJ, Vaughn BP, Howell MD, Ngo LH, Marcantonio ER. Acid-suppressive medication use and the risk for nosocomial gastrointestinal tract bleeding. Arch Intern Med. 2011;171(11):991–997.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  3. Therapeutic ASHP. Guidelines on Stress Ulcer Prophylaxis. ASHP Commission on Therapeutics and approved by the ASHP Board of Directors on November 14, 1998. Am J Health Syst Pharm. 1999;56(4):347–379.

    Google Scholar 

  4. Qadeer MA, Richter JE, Brotman DJ. Hospital-acquired gastrointestinal bleeding outside the critical care unit: risk factors, role of acid suppression, and endoscopy findings. J Hosp Med. 2006;1(1):13–20.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  5. Ben-Menachem T, Fogel R, Patel RV, et al. Prophylaxis for stress-related gastric hemorrhage in the medical intensive care unit. A randomized, controlled, single-blind study. Ann Intern Med. 1994;121(8):568–575.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Cook DJ, Fuller HD, Guyatt GH, et al. Risk factors for gastrointestinal bleeding in critically ill patients. Canadian Critical Care Trials Group. N Engl J Med. 1994;330(6):377–381.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Schuster DP, Rowley H, Feinstein S, McGue MK, Zuckerman GR. Prospective evaluation of the risk of upper gastrointestinal bleeding after admission to a medical intensive care unit. Am J Med. 1984;76(4):623–630.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Nikolsky E, Mehran R, Dangas G, et al. Development and validation of a prognostic risk score for major bleeding in patients undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention via the femoral approach. Eur Heart J. 2007;28(16):1936–1945.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  9. Bhatt DL, Cryer BL, Contant CF, et al. Clopidogrel with or without omeprazole in coronary artery disease. N Engl J Med. 2010;363(20):1909–1917.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  10. Ray WA, Murray KT, Griffin MR, et al. Outcomes with concurrent use of clopidogrel and proton-pump inhibitors: a cohort study. Ann Intern Med. 2010;152(6):337–345.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  11. Charlson ME, Pompei P, Ales KL, MacKenzie CR. A new method of classifying prognostic comorbidity in longitudinal studies: development and validation. J Chronic Dis. 1987;40(5):373–383.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  12. Quan H, Sundararajan V, Halfon P, et al. Coding algorithms for defining comorbidities in ICD-9-CM and ICD-10 administrative data. Med Care. 2005;43(11):1130–1139.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  13. CCS. H. Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP). December 2009; www.hcup-us.ahrq.gov/toolssoftware/ccs/ccs.jsp.

  14. Cook D, Heyland D, Griffith L, Cook R, Marshall J, Pagliarello J. Risk factors for clinically important upper gastrointestinal bleeding in patients requiring mechanical ventilation. Canadian Critical Care Trials Group. Crit Care Med. Dec. 1999;27(12):2812–2817.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  15. Pimentel M, Roberts DE, Bernstein CN, Hoppensack M, Duerksen DR. Clinically significant gastrointestinal bleeding in critically ill patients in an era of prophylaxis. Am J Gastroenterol. 2000;95(10):2801–2806.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  16. Le Gall JR, Mignon FC, Rapin M, et al. Acute gastroduodenal lesions related to severe sepsis. Surg Gynecol Obstet. 1976;142(3):377–380.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  17. Hastings PR, Skillman JJ, Bushnell LS, Silen W. Antacid titration in the prevention of acute gastrointestinal bleeding: a controlled, randomized trial in 100 critically ill patients. N Engl J Med. 1978;298(19):1041–1045.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  18. Fiddian-Green RG, McGough E, Pittenger G, Rothman E. Predictive value of intramural pH and other risk factors for massive bleeding from stress ulceration. Gastroenterology. 1983;85(3):613–620.

    PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  19. Estruch R, Pedrol E, Castells A, Masanes F, Marrades RM, Urbano-Marquez A. Prophylaxis of gastrointestinal tract bleeding with magaldrate in patients admitted to a general hospital ward. Scand J Gastroenterol. 1991;26(8):819–826.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  20. Aseeri M, Schroeder T, Kramer J, Zackula R. Gastric acid suppression by proton pump inhibitors as a risk factor for clostridium difficile-associated diarrhea in hospitalized patients. Am J Gastroenterol. 2008;103(9):2308–2313.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  21. Dial S, Alrasadi K, Manoukian C, Huang A, Menzies D. Risk of Clostridium difficile diarrhea among hospital inpatients prescribed proton pump inhibitors: cohort and case-control studies. CMAJ. 2004;171(1):33–38.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  22. Herzig SJ, Howell MD, Ngo LH, Marcantonio ER. Acid-suppressive medication use and the risk for hospital-acquired pneumonia. JAMA. 2009;301(20):2120–2128.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  23. Howell MD, Novack V, Grgurich P, et al. Iatrogenic gastric acid suppression and the risk of nosocomial Clostridium difficile infection. Arch Intern Med. 2010;170(9):784–790.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

None.

Contributors

None.

Funders

Dr. Ngo was funded by grant number 1 UL1 RR025758-01 from the National Center for Research Resources to support the Harvard Clinical and Translational Science Center. Dr. Marcantonio was funded by grant numbers P01AG031720, R01AG030618 and R03AG028189 from the National Institute on Aging. Dr. Marcantonio is also supported by a Midcareer Investigator Award in Patient-Oriented Research from the National Institute on Aging [K24 AG035075]. The study contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the National Center for Research Resources or the National Institute on Aging. The funding organizations had no involvement in any aspect of the study, including design and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of the data; and preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript.

Prior Presentations

An earlier version of these results was presented as a poster at the Society of General Medicine National Meeting in Phoenix, Arizona, in May, 2011.

Conflict of Interest

None of the authors of this manuscript have any relevant disclosures or conflicts of interest to report.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Shoshana J. Herzig MD, MPH.

Electronic supplementary material

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

ESM 1

(DOC 81.5 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Herzig, S.J., Rothberg, M.B., Feinbloom, D.B. et al. Risk Factors for Nosocomial Gastrointestinal Bleeding and Use of Acid-Suppressive Medication in Non-Critically Ill Patients. J GEN INTERN MED 28, 683–690 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11606-012-2296-x

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11606-012-2296-x

KEY WORDS

Navigation