Urgent Patients with Digestive Diseases in the Inpatient Setting in our Department of General Internal Medicine

Abstract

We examined patient characteristics, clinical symptoms, diseases, and treatment for urgent inpatients with digestive symptoms from April, 2014 to August, 2015 in our Department of General Internal Medicine. The total number was 183, with a mean age of 65 years, ranging from 15 to 97 years. Eighty-eight patients were male and 95 were female. The majority of patients had abdominal pain as their chief complaint （70 patients）, followed by anemia, bloody stools, appetite loss, tarry stool, diarrhea, vomiting, hematemesis, and abdominal distention. Eighteen patients had gastric cancer, 13 colon cancer, 12 acute pancreatitis, 11 intestinal obstruction, 11 ischemic colitis, 10 gastric ulcer, 6 bile duct stones, 6 colonic diverticulitis, 4 esophageal cancer and 4 gastric antral vascular ectasia (GAVE). Acute pancreatitis, intestinal obstruction, ischemic colitis, gastric ulcer, colon diverticulitis, GAVE and choledocholithiasis were treated in our department. Surgery for acute cholecystitis was performed with laparoscopic cholecystectomy. Treatment of gastric cancer, esophageal cancer and colon cancer was based on clinical guidelines, and endoscopic submucosa dissection (ESD) was conducted for superficial cancers. Patients requiring surgical treatment or chemotherapy were moved to the Department of Surgery. Currently, any patient with digestive symptoms is treated in our department, where, moreover, not only endoscopic examination but also endoscopic surgery can be performed.