Credit: Medical University of South Carolina
For many of the millions of patients treated annually in hospitals for upper gastrointestinal (GI) bleeding, there is little value in placing a nasogastric (NG) tube in patients to determine the source of that bleeding or size of a lesion, report investigators in an article published online ahead of print on January 9, 2017 by the Journal of Investigative Medicine.
Study authors, including Don C. Rockey, M.D., Medical of University of South Carolina (MUSC) Department of Medicine chair and professor of gastroenterology, position the research as improving patient care by doing less when possible, in terms of procedures or treatments that don't provide significant benefit to patients and are costly and uncomfortable.
"Placing a tube through the nose and down into the stomach makes sense if we are talking about delivering nutrition to a patient or to get an idea of what is in someone's stomach, but the value of placing this tube for patients who have an upper GI bleed has been unclear," Rockey said. "Our goal was to examine that value, and our results suggest that for millions of patients with an upper GI bleed, placing this tube had little clinical benefit and produces unnecessary cost and discomfort for all involved. If it doesn't help the patient or the clinician trying to diagnose the cause of this kind of bleed, we don't need it as a standard of care when there is no value."
The single-blind, randomized, prospective, non-inferiority study compared NG placement (with aspiration and lavage) to no NG placement (control) and demonstrated that NG tube placement in patients with typical upper GI bleeding had no impact on outcomes. In addition, the placement of NG tubes was often unsuccessful or associated with patient discomfort.
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Founded in 1824 in Charleston, The Medical University of South Carolina is the oldest medical school in the South. Today, MUSC continues the tradition of excellence in education, research, and patient care. MUSC educates and trains more than 3,000 students and residents in six colleges (Dental Medicine, Graduate Studies, Health Professions, Medicine, Nursing, and Pharmacy), and has nearly 13,000 employees, including approximately 1,500 faculty members. As the largest non-federal employer in Charleston, the university and its affiliates have collective annual budgets in excess of $2.2 billion, with an annual economic impact of more than $3.8 billion and annual research funding in excess of $250 million. MUSC operates a 700-bed medical center, which includes a nationally recognized children's hospital, the Ashley River Tower (cardiovascular, digestive disease, and surgical oncology), Hollings Cancer Center (a National Cancer Institute-designated center), Level I trauma center, Institute of Psychiatry, and the state's only transplant center. In 2016, U.S. News & World Report named MUSC Health the number one hospital in South Carolina. For more information on academic programs or clinical services, visit musc.edu. For more information on hospital patient services, visit muschealth.org.
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