Determination of correlation of Adjusted Blood Requirement Index with outcome in patients presenting with acute variceal bleeding.

AIM To determine the correlation of Adjusted Blood Requirement Index (ABRI) with the 7th day outcome in patients presenting with acute variceal bleeding. METHODS All patients presenting with acute variceal hemorrhage (AVH) were included. Patients with previous band ligation, sclerotherapy, gastrointestinal or hepatic malignancies were excluded. Patients were managed as per standard protocol for AVH with terlipressin and band ligation. ABRI scores were calculated using the formula outcome of alive or expired up to the 7th day after treatment. The correlation between ABRI and mortality was estimated and a receiver operative characteristic (ROC) curve was plotted. RESULTS A total of 113 patients (76 male; 37 female) were included. On assessment, 18 were in Child's Pugh Class A, 82 in Class B and 13 were in Class C. The median number of blood units transfused +/- inter-quartile range was 3.0 +/- 2.0. The median +/- inter-quartile range for ABRI was 1.3 +/- 1.1. The ROC curve of ABRI for expiry showed a significantly large area of 0.848 (P < 0.0001; 95% CI: 0.75-0.95). A significant correlation of log transformation of ABRI with an outcome of mortality was present (P < 0.0001). CONCLUSION ABRI correlates strongly with mortality.