1999 Volume 53 Pages 122-123
Clinical usefulness of gold probe, a bipolar electrohemostastic catheter, which was recently available in Japan, was examined. The gold-spiral electrode on the probe tip provides bipolar electrohemostasis.
Among the patient in whom emergent upper gastrointestinal endoscopy was performed from February to May in 1998 in our hospital, the endoscopic hemostastic therapies using gold probe were performed in 10 patients. The bleeding site were gastric ulcer in 7 patients, gastric cancer in one, Mallory-Weiss syndrome in one, and gastric submucosal tumor in one. Seven out of the 10 patients, the endoscopic hemostastic therapies were performed solely with gold probe ; hemostasis was successful in 6 of them, however, rebleeding was observed in one. Three out of the 10 patients, hemostastic therapies with gold probe were unsatisfactory, and the additional therapies with ethanol injection or clipping were undertaken.
Selection of the patients indicated for electrohemostastic therapies with gold probe and improvement of the technique of the electrocoagulation should be necessary to achieve more effective hemostastic effect.
