The research team, led by Dr Chang-Hwan Park from Chonnan National University Medical School in Gwangju, studied 90 patients who were due to receive treatment to halt the bleeding of a peptic ulcer.
The patients were assigned to undergo treatment using either a flexible endoscope to place clips or rubber bands over the bleeding blood vessel in the ulcer together with an injection of epinephrine, or epinephrine injection alone using an endoscope.
Follow-up of the patients revealed that only around 4 percent of participants in the combination treatment group experienced recurrent bleeding, compared with around 20 percent of the group who only received the epinephrine injection.
In addition, the average number of endoscope sessions needed to permanently halt bleeding was significantly lower in the group that received the combination treatment than the injection only group.
"The combination of an endoscopic mechanical method of hemostasis plus epinephrine injection is more effective than epinephrine injection alone for the treatment of bleeding peptic ulcer," the researchers conclude in the Journal of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy.
Source: Journal of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy