PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Susan Owensby
AU  - Kellee Taylor
AU  - Thad Wilkins
TI  - Diagnosis and Management of Upper Gastrointestinal Bleeding in Children
AID  - 10.3122/jabfm.2015.01.140153
DP  - 2015 Jan 01
TA  - The Journal of the American Board of Family
                Medicine
PG  - 134--145
VI  - 28
IP  - 1
4099  - http://www.jabfm.org/content/28/1/134.short
4100  - http://www.jabfm.org/content/28/1/134.full
SO  - J Am Board Fam Med2015 Jan 01; 28
AB  - Upper gastrointestinal bleeding is an uncommon but potentially serious, life-threatening condition in children. Rapid assessment, stabilization, and resuscitation should precede all diagnostic modalities in unstable children. The diagnostic approach includes history, examination, laboratory evaluation, endoscopic procedures, and imaging studies. The clinician needs to determine carefully whether any blood or possible blood reported by a child or adult represents true upper gastrointestinal bleeding because most children with true upper gastrointestinal bleeding require admission to a pediatric intensive care unit. After the diagnosis is established, the physician should start a proton pump inhibitor or histamine 2 receptor antagonist in children with upper gastrointestinal bleeding. Consideration should also be given to the initiation of vasoactive drugs in all children in whom variceal bleeding is suspected. An endoscopy should be performed once the child is hemodynamically stable.