Timing of Endoscopy for Acute Upper Gastrointestinal Bleeding

To the Editor:In their single-center trial on the timing of endoscopy for acute upper gastrointestinal bleeding, Lau et al. (April 2 issue)(1)found that 30-day mortality did not differ significantly between patients who were randomly assigned to undergo endoscopy within 6 hours after gastroenterologic consultation (urgent-endoscopy group) and those who were assigned to undergo endoscopy between 6 and 24 hours after consultation (early-endoscopy group) (8.9% and 6.6%, respectively; P=0.34). Similarly, a study of 20 U.K. centers(2)showed that early endoscopy (<= 24 hours after hospital admission) was not associated with a significantly lower 30-day mortality than delayed endoscopy (>24 hours . . .