Assessment of Complete Blood Count in Gastrointestinal Bleeding Patients Attending A Gastrointestinal Bleeding Center, Khartoum, Sudan: A Preliminary Study

Abstract

This work was a hospital based study aimed to determine complete blood count (CBC) in adult patients complaining of gastrointestinal (GI) bleeding. The patients selected were adult Sudanese patients with GI bleeding (44 males and 21 females) at age range 16-80 years. Patients were attending Mohammed Salih Idris Center for GI bleeding in Khartoum, Sudan during January to March 2010. Informed consent was obtained from participants (50 patients and 15 controls), then 4 ml of venous blood was withdrawn to investigate CBC components for each participant following a well designed questionnaire. The results of this study showed that, the mean of patient�s hemoglobin (Hb) was 8.01 gm/dl, the mean of packed cell volume (PCV) was 24.91%, platelets count was 157.90/mm3, mean corpuscular hemoglobin (MCH) was 2.39 pg, mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration (MCHC) was 31.37g/dl and total of white blood cell (WBC) count was 10,100 cells/mm3. These values were statistically different (p< 0.05) when compared to that of control. This study concluded that, patients with GI bleeding were at risk of anemia, hypoxia and their medical consequences. Also this study concluded that, GI bleeding has an equal and quite similar impact on patient regardless of gender and age although males were more frequently affected by the disease.