Abstract
Background Gastrointestinal bleeding (GIB) is a common cause of emergency department (ED) visits and has a variety of prognoses. This study aimed to verify the prognosis prediction ability of the lactate/albumin ratio (L/A ratio) in GIB patients compared to the AIMS65 score and the blood urea nitrogen/albumin ratio (B/A ratio).Methods This retrospective study was conducted among patients complaining of GIB symptoms who visited an ED in 2019. Baseline characteristics and laboratory data were obtained to calculate the L/A ratio, B/A ratio, and AIMS65 score. Each score was evaluated as a predictor of ICU admission and in-hospital mortality using the area under the receiver operating characteristic (AUROC) curve.Results Multivariate logistic regression revealed that the L/A ratio significantly predicted ICU admission and in-hospital mortality. The AUROC scores for predicting ICU admission were 0.788 for the L/A ratio, 0.695 for the B/A ratio, and 0.586 for the AIMS65 score. For predicting in-hospital mortality, the scores were 0.807 for the L/A ratio, 0.799 for the B/A ratio, and 0.683 for AIMS65.Conclusions The L/A ratio, consisting of serum lactate and albumin levels, had superior performance relative to the other tools (B/A and AIMS65) in predicting the prognosis of GIB patients.