Comparison of argon laser photocoagulation and bipolar electrocoagulation for endoscopic hemostasis in the canine colon.

Severe bleeding from the lower gastrointestinal tract commonly occurs from mucosal lesions such as angiodysplasia and less often from acute ulcerations. Endoscopic coagulation of such lesions is now feasible. Our purpose was to compare the efficacy and histologic injury of bipolar electrocoagulation and argon laser photocoagulation applied at laparotomy in the canine colon. After right colotomy and heparinization in adult mongrel dogs, bleeding standard ulcers were randomly assigned to treatment or control. The colonic ulcers randomized to each group were not significantly different in size or bleeding rate. Efficacy of treatment was evaluated acutely. Adjacent normal mucosa was treated with the same modality as the ulcer to simulate treatment of a mucosal lesion. The same total exposure time (argon laser photocoagulation) or number of pulses (bipolar electrocoagulation) was used for these paired treatments. Gross and histologic injury were determined after 7 days. Both argon laser photocoagulation and bipolar electrocoagulation were uniformly effective in controlling bleeding from standard colonic ulcers and the incidence of full thickness injury was similar, 33%-48%. The histologic damage seen with normal mucosa treatment was consistently less than with standard ulcers for all treatment groups. The difference is easily explained by the reduction in colonic wall thickness of about 50% with creation of standard ulcers. In our opinion, argon laser photocoagulation and bipolar electrocoagulation are safe enough to be used in clinical trials for control of colonic bleeding from mucosal lesions but not acute colonic ulcers.