Long acting release-octreotide as "rescue" therapy to control angiodysplasia bleeding: A retrospective study of 98 cases

BACKGROUND: Gastrointestinal angiodysplasias are an important cause of difficult to manage bleeding, especially in older patients. AIM: To retrospectively evaluate the long-term efficacy of long acting release-octreotide in controlling angiodysplasia bleeding. METHODS: 98 patients with a history of bleeding due to gastrointestinal angiodysplasias lasting over 2 years were retrospectively selected among those treated from January 2000 to December 2008. All patients had received octreotide 0.1mg tid for 28 days and, then from day 14, long acting release-octreotide 20mg monthly, for 6 months. RESULTS: The mean follow-up was 78 months. In all patients mean haemoglobin levels significantly increased and the number of bleeding episodes, hospitalizations, patients requiring blood transfusions and units of transfused red cells significantly decreased, compared to the two-year observation period before starting therapy. According to outcome patients were classified as: 40 full responders (40.8%), 32 relapsers (32.6%) and 26 poor responders (26.5%). At multivariate analysis age >65 years, male sex, chronic antiplatelet therapy, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and chronic renal failure were the only covariates independently associated with poor response to therapy. CONCLUSION: Our study suggests that long acting release-octreotide could be used as rescue therapy to control bleeding due to gastrointestinal angiodysplasias in patients not suitable for endoscopic or surgical treatments