Endoscopic therapy for gastrointestinal bleeding.

The use of endoscopic techniques to control gastrointestinal bleeding is an exciting addition to the therapeutic armamentarium. Alternatives include lasers, bipolar probes, heater probes, and sclerosing agents. The lack of statistically significant data should be viewed cautiously, because it is difficult to devise controlled trials for gastrointestinal bleeding that incorporate enough patients to avoid a type II statistical error. However, a healthy degree of skepticism is necessary to prevent the use of highly remunerative techniques of questionable benefit to the patient.