EFFICACY OF THE HEATER PROBE IN PEPTIC-ULCER WITH A NONBLEEDING VISIBLE VESSEL - A CONTROLLED, RANDOMIZED STUDY

A controlled, randomised study was performed to evaluate the efficacy of treatment with heater probe in the prevention of rebleeding from pe ptic ulcer with a non-bleeding visible vessel. One hundred and one pat ients were randomised into two groups: patients to be treated by heate r probe (n=51) and controls without active treatment (n=50). In the he ater probe group rebleeding occurred in five patients (10%) v 13 (26%) in the control group (p=0.03), with a comparative risk of 0.38 in fav our of the heater probe group. The difference in proportions of succes sful treatment for each group was 16.2% in favour of the heater probe (95% CI=2 to 31%). Haemorrhage directly related to heater probe treatm ent occurred in four patients. In three of them bleeding was easily co ntrolled by further heater probe pulses. There were no other complicat ions and no death in the heater probe group. One patient in the contro l group died of pulmonary embolism. No significant differences in the length of stay in hospital, blood transfusions, surgical rates, or dea th were found; the design of the study, however, precluded an adequate assessment of these variables, because the heater probe was an option al rescue treatment when high surgical risk patients rebled. These res ults suggest that the heater probe is an effective and safe procedure in the prevention of recurrent haemorrhage in peptic ulcer with a non- bleeding visible vessel.