Objective To compare the predictive accuracy and clinical utility of five risk scoring systems in the assessment of patients with upper gastrointestinal bleeding.Design International multicentre prospective study.Setting Six large hospitals in Europe, North America, Asia, and Oceania.Participants 3012 consecutive patients presenting over 12 months with upper gastrointestinal bleeding.Main outcome measures Comparison of pre-endoscopy scores (admission Rockall, AIMS65, and Glasgow Blatchford) and post-endoscopy scores (full Rockall and PNED) for their ability to predict predefined clinical endpoints: a composite endpoint (transfusion, endoscopic treatment, interventional radiology, surgery, or 30 day mortality), endoscopic treatment, 30 day mortality, rebleeding, and length of hospital stay. Optimum score thresholds to identify low risk and high risk patients were determined.Results The Glasgow Blatchford score was best (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC) 0.86) at predicting intervention or death compared with the full Rockall score (0.70), PNED score (0.69), admission Rockall score (0.66, and AIMS65 score (0.68) (all P<0.001). A Glasgow Blatchford score of ≤1 was the optimum threshold to predict survival without intervention (sensitivity 98.6%, specificity 34.6%). The Glasgow Blatchford score was better at predicting endoscopic treatment (AUROC 0.75) than the AIMS65 (0.62) and admission Rockall scores (0.61) (both P<0.001). A Glasgow Blatchford score of ≥7 was the optimum threshold to predict endoscopic treatment (sensitivity 80%, specificity 57%). The PNED (AUROC 0.77) and AIMS65 scores (0.77) were best at predicting mortality, with both superior to admission Rockall score (0.72) and Glasgow Blatchford score (0.64; P<0.001). Score thresholds of ≥4 for PNED, ≥2 for AIMS65, ≥4 for admission Rockall, and ≥5 for full Rockall were optimal at predicting death, with sensitivities of 65.8-78.6% and specificities of 65.0-65.3%. No score was helpful at predicting rebleeding or length of stay.Conclusions The Glasgow Blatchford score has high accuracy at predicting need for hospital based intervention or death. Scores of ≤1 appear the optimum threshold for directing patients to outpatient management. AUROCs of scores for the other endpoints are less than 0.80, therefore their clinical utility for these outcomes seems to be limited.Trial registration Current Controlled Trials ISRCTN16235737.

MAIN RECOMMENDATIONS 1 ESGE recommends in patients with acute upper gastrointestinal hemorrhage (UGIH) the use of the Glasgow–Blatchford Score (GBS) for pre-endoscopy risk stratification. Patients with GBS ≤ 1 are at very low risk of rebleeding, mortality within 30 days, or needing hospital-based intervention and can be safely managed as outpatients with outpatient endoscopy.Strong recommendation, moderate quality evidence. 2 ESGE recommends that in patients with acute UGIH who are taking low-dose aspirin as monotherapy for secondary cardiovascular prophylaxis, aspirin should not be interrupted. If for any reason it is interrupted, aspirin should be re-started as soon as possible, preferably within 3–5 days.Strong recommendation, moderate quality evidence. 3 ESGE recommends that following hemodynamic resuscitation, early (≤ 24 hours) upper gastrointestinal (GI) endoscopy should be performed. Strong recommendation, high quality evidence. 4 ESGE does not recommend urgent (≤ 12 hours) upper GI endoscopy since as compared to early endoscopy, patient outcomes are not improved. Strong recommendation, high quality evidence. 5 ESGE recommends for patients with actively bleeding ulcers (FIa, FIb), combination therapy using epinephrine injection plus a second hemostasis modality (contact thermal or mechanical therapy). Strong recommendation, high quality evidence. 6 ESGE recommends for patients with an ulcer with a nonbleeding visible vessel (FIIa), contact or noncontact thermal therapy, mechanical therapy, or injection of a sclerosing agent, each as monotherapy or in combination with epinephrine injection. Strong recommendation, high quality evidence. 7 ESGE suggests that in patients with persistent bleeding refractory to standard hemostasis modalities, the use of a topical hemostatic spray/powder or cap-mounted clip should be considered. Weak recommendation, low quality evidence. 8 ESGE recommends that for patients with clinical evidence of recurrent peptic ulcer hemorrhage, use of a cap-mounted clip should be considered. In the case of failure of this second attempt at endoscopic hemostasis, transcatheter angiographic embolization (TAE) should be considered. Surgery is indicated when TAE is not locally available or after failed TAE. Strong recommendation, moderate quality evidence. 9 ESGE recommends high dose proton pump inhibitor (PPI) therapy for patients who receive endoscopic hemostasis and for patients with FIIb ulcer stigmata (adherent clot) not treated endoscopically. (a) PPI therapy should be administered as an intravenous bolus followed by continuous infusion (e. g., 80 mg then 8 mg/hour) for 72 hours post endoscopy. (b) High dose PPI therapies given as intravenous bolus dosing (twice-daily) or in oral formulation (twice-daily) can be considered as alternative regimens.Strong recommendation, high quality evidence. 10 ESGE recommends that in patients who require ongoing anticoagulation therapy following acute NVUGIH (e. g., peptic ulcer hemorrhage), anticoagulation should be resumed as soon as the bleeding has been controlled, preferably within or soon after 7 days of the bleeding event, based on thromboembolic risk. The rapid onset of action of direct oral anticoagulants (DOACS), as compared to vitamin K antagonists (VKAs), must be considered in this context.Strong recommendation, low quality evidence.

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ObjectivesExisting scores are not accurate at predicting mortality in upper (UGIB) and lower (LGIB) gastrointestinal bleeding. We aimed to develop and validate a new pre-endoscopy score for predicting mortality in both UGIB and LGIB.Design and settingInternational cohort study. Patients presenting to hospital with UGIB at six international centres were used to develop a risk score for predicting mortality using regression analyses. The score’s performance in UGIB and LGIB was externally validated and compared with existing scores using four international datasets. We calculated areas under receiver operating characteristics curves (AUROCs), sensitivities, specificities and outcome among patients classified as low risk and high risk.Participants and resultsWe included 3012 UGIB patients in the development cohort, and 4019 UGIB and 2336 LGIB patients in the validation cohorts. Age, Blood tests and Comorbidities (ABC) score was closer associated with mortality in UGIB and LGIB (AUROCs: 0.81–84) than existing scores (AUROCs: 0.65–0.75; p≤0.02). In UGIB, patients with low ABC score (≤3), medium ABC score (4–7) and high ABC score (≥8) had 30-day mortality rates of 1.0%, 7.0% and 25%, respectively. Patients classified low risk using ABC score had lower mortality than those classified low risk with AIMS65 (threshold ≤1) (1.0 vs 4.5%; p<0.001). In LGIB, patients with low, medium and high ABC scores had in-hospital mortality rates of 0.6%, 6.3% and 18%, respectively.ConclusionsIn contrast to previous scores, ABC score has good performance for predicting mortality in both UGIB and LGIB, allowing early identification and targeted management of patients at high or low risk of death.

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