Navicam as a Triage Tool in the Management of Patients With Acute Upper Gastrointestinal Bleeding

Acute upper gastrointestinal bleeding(AUGIB) is a common emergency. The NaviCam (ANKON) is a miniaturised wireless endoscope in a single use capsule. It can be remotely controlled with the patient in a magnetic console.. In patients with AUGIB, NaviCam has been compared to conventional esophago-gastro-duodenoscopy (EGD) in their diagnostic yields. NaviCam has been shown to detect more lesions including those in the small bowel. There are therefore several theoretical advantages to the use of NaviCam in the management of patients with AUGIB.An initial NaviCam examination allows triaging of patients. Those with low risk lesions can be discharged without EGD and hospital admission. These represent substantial reduction in resource utilisation. In the diagnosis of small bowel lesions, the yield from a video capsule examination is higher closer to the time of index bleed. The primary objective of the study is to determine the diagnostic yield of NaviCam in patients who present with overt signs of AUGIB. In addition, the investigators aim to determine if NaviCam examinations can reduce hospital resource utilisation and compare the use of NaviCam as a triage tool to the use of risk scores such as the Glasgow Blatchford Score (GBS). The investigators hypothesize that early NaviCam examination can allow safe discharge of more patients when compared to GBS.