- Temple EM
Development and Validation of a Risk Scoring System for Severe Acute Lower Gastrointestinal Bleedin
The Article: Development and Validation of a Risk Scoring System for Severe
Acute Lower Gastrointestinal Bleeding
Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology 2016
The Idea: Develop a scoring system to help predict patient outcomes and severity of lower GI bleeds (LGIB)
The Study:
Derivation study:
-Retrospective analysis of 439 emergency department patients in single center in Japan
– Inclusion criteria: confirmed bleed on colonoscopy, bleeding developed outside the hospital
-Exclusion criteria: patients with upper GI bleeds, chronic LGIB, inpatient development of bleeding
Validation study:
-Prospective analysis of 424 patients at same center as derivation study
-Inclusion criteria: overt GIB in emergency department, confirmed by colonoscopy as inpatient
-Exclusion criteria: inpatient development of bleed, no confirmatory studies, UGIB
Primary Outcomes: continuous LGIB in the first 24 hours, 2U PRBCs, Hct drop of >20%
Secondary Outcomes: blood transfusion requirement, need for intervention, length of stay
The Findings:
-Derivation study developed risk scoring system: nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs use, no diarrhea, no abdominal tenderness, blood pressure of 100 mm Hg or lower, antiplatelet drugs use, albumin level less than 3.0 g/dL, disease scores of 2 or higher, and syncope (NOBLADS)
-All factors were independent correlates of severe LGIB
-Severe LGIB developed in 75.7% of patients with scores of 5 or higher compared with 2% of patients without any of the factors correlated with severe LGIB (P < .001)
-In the validation study severe LGIB developed in 35% of patients
-NOBLADS score predicted the severity of LGIB with an AUC value of 0.76
-Higher NOBLADS scores were associated with a requirement for blood transfusion, longer hospital stay, and intervention (P < .05 for trend).
The Limitations:
-Derivation/validation studies performed at single center
-May have missed small LGIB hemorrhage given small patient size
The Takeaway:
Predicting severity of LGIB and dispositioning patients appropriately can be difficult, this study found patient characteristics that seem to correlate with poor patient outcomes and more severe LGIB.