Current management of upper gastrointestinal bleeding.

Despite the introduction of proton pump inhibitors and modern flexible endoscopy techniques, upper gastrointestinal bleeding is still a common and serious condition. Once considered the domain of surgery, it is now uncommon to treat endoscopically controllable bleeding surgically. Therefore, most surgically treated cases are complicated and associated with a high mortality rate. This article presents the current management of upper gastrointestinal bleeding. Besides the description of current endoscopic treatment, medical prophylaxis and treatment, as well as radiological intervention, the article describes the indication and the surgical procedure.