Acute gastroduodenal mucosal lesion

AGML (acute gastric mucosal lesion) is now recognized as one of the important causal disease for gastrointestinal bleeding. If patients have sudden onsets of epigastralgia, epigastric discomfort, vomiting, hematemesis and melena following probable causes, it seems quite reasonable to make diagnosis of AGML by endoscopy with findings of gastric erosion, hemorrhagic gastritis and gastric ulcer. There are a variety of causes for AGML such as psychological and physical stress, drugs (NSAIDs, antibiotics, adrenal corticoid steroid, anti cancer drug), alcohol, serious organ failure of liver, kidney, heart, anisakiasis and etc. There are aslso a variety of endoscopic findings of AGML such as redness, edema, erosion, ulcer, bleeding which vary quickly in a short time. In this article we describe the definition, the cause, the clinical course, the location, the diagnosis, the endoscopic findings, our cases, the treatment of AGML.