Role of octreotide in small bowel bleeding

Abstract

Gastrointestinal bleeding accounts for a drastic negative impact on the quality of the patients’ lives as it requires multiple diagnostic and therapeutic interventions to identify the source of the bleeding. Small bowel bleeding is the least common cause of gastrointestinal bleeding. However, it is responsible for the majority of complaints from patients with persisting or recurring bleeding where the primary source of bleeding cannot be identified despite investigation. A somatostatin analog known as octreotide is among the medical treatment modalities currently used to manage small bowel bleeding. This medication helps control symptoms of gastrointestinal bleeding by augmenting platelet aggregation, decreasing splanchnic blood flow, and antagonizing angiogenesis. In this review article, we will highlight the clinical efficacy of octreotide in small bowel bleeding and its subsequent effect on morbidity and mortality.

Keywords: Octreotide, Small bowel, Hemorrhage, Angiodysplasia, Vascular malformations, Hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia

Core Tip: Small Bowel bleeding can result from vessel malformations, inflammation, varices, drugs, infections, tumors, or coagulopathy disorders. Octreotide, a synthetic somatostatin analog, is an effective therapy in stopping esophageal variceal bleeding by causing splanchnic vasoconstriction. Octreotide can also be used to control small intestinal variceal bleeding depending on similar mechanisms. Using Octreotide in treating other non-variceal etiologies of small gastrointestinal bleeding has been evaluated and reported with promising results.