Risk factors and mortality in patients with cancer and hemorrhage from stress ulcer.

Hemorrhagic gastritis is the most frequent cause of upper gastrointestinal bleeding in patients with cancer. A study was undertaken to evaluate the clinical course of 87 patients, in a cancer hospital setting, with hemorrhagic gastritis associated with stress, exogenous gastric irritants and the combination of the two. The average number of blood transfusions was four times higher and the average duration of bleeding was twice as long in stress patients as in patients without stress. Fifty-four per cent of stress patients died, whereas all patients survived in the group without stress. Although there were no statistically significant differences, patients with the combination of gastric irritants and stress tended to bleed longer and have a higher mortality than patients with stress alone. Over two-thirds of the deaths were ascribed to associated stress risk factors such as sepsis, multiple organ failure and advanced cancer and not to gastrointestinal hemorrhage.