ABSTRACT

In the neonatal period, upper gastrointestinal system (GIS) bleeding may be due to benign disorders which do not require any treatments or may be relevant to serious conditions requiring urgent intervention. There are two major causes of upper GIS bleeding developed in the newborns; vitamin K deficiency-induced hemorrhagic disease of the newborn and maternal blood swallowed during birth. Other causes of this type of bleeding include gastritis, esophagitis, peptic ulcus (PU), coagulopathy, sepsis, vascular malformations, trauma, and esofagealgastric duplications. Rarely, gastric erosion or perforation due to oro/naso gastric tube might cause severe upper GIS bleeding. Hemodynamic resuscitation, bleeding control, and prevention of the recurrence form the basis of the management. However, a somatostatin analogue (ocreotide) may be helpful by reducing the splanchnic blood flow, if bleeding is caused by a known vascular lesion or arterial erosion. In this paper, a case of newborn with upper GIS bleeding developed within the first 24 hour life and probably caused by arterial erosion due to oro/gastric tube and treated by ocreotide was presented in the light of literature.

Keywords: Upper gastrointestinal system bleeding, newborn, somatostatin analogue