• Gastrointestinal bleeding is a widespread clinical condition, with reported mortality of ~8%. The extent of GI bleeding can range from life-threatening hemorrhage to chronic blood loss. One of the biggest dangers of GI bleeding, including serious cases, is its often silent nature.
• There are various causes of bleeding in different parts of GI tract. For the upper GI tract the common causes of are peptic ulcers of the stomach or duodenum, tears in the veins or the walls of esophagus, gastritis and duodenitis, foreign body ingestion, angiodysplasia and upper GI tumors, such as esophageal cancer, stomach cancer and cancer of the small intestine. Surgical and endoscopic procedure could also potentially cause GI bleeding.
• While most cases of GI bleeding are mild and get cured autonomously, severe instances may lead to serious complications and require proper medical care. The conservative treatment of GI bleeding makes an active use of IV fluids and blood transfusion, along with drugs such as erythromycin, metoclopramide and octreotide to prevent further bleeding. If non-invasive treatments are failing completely, the use of surgery may be necessary as a last resort.

A particular challenge represent severe cases of GI bleeding where conservative treatment fails and precise location of the source of hemorrhage is difficult or impossible to identify. This can happen for example when a tumor disintegrates and begins to bleed profusely.