Influence of age and disease state in nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drug associated gastric bleeding.

In our study of 552 acute admissions for gastrointestinal hemorrhage, 18% were found to be taking nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs (NSAID) at the time of the bleed; 49% of these were found at endoscopy to have a gastric or prepyloric lesion, compared with 20% of the non-NSAID control group. Prescription data was used to calculate the risk added by age and disease state to the NSAID associated bleeding. We found that patients with chronic inflammatory disease had 2-3 times the expected bleeding incidence, but while there was a definite trend towards an age related risk in older patients, this was not statistically significant.