Coffee ground vomiting
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| Coffee ground vomiting Classification and external resources |
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Coffee ground vomiting refers to a particular appearance of vomit. Blood contains iron within heme molecules in red blood cells. When this iron has been exposed to gastric acid for some time, it becomes oxidized. This reaction causes the vomitus to look like ground coffee. Coffee-ground vomitus is a classic sign of upper gastro-intestinal bleeding. A peptic ulcer, for example, may bleed into the stomach and produce coffee-ground vomitus. When bright red blood is vomited, this is termed hematemesis. Hematemesis, in contrast to coffee ground vomitus, suggests that upper gastrointestinal bleeding is more acute or more severe, or originates more proximally than the stomach: for example, in the esophagus due to a Mallory-Weiss tear.
Oxidized blood from an upper gastrointestal bleed can also be excreted in stool. It produces tarry, blackened stools known as melena.
See also
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Some of the initial content on this page may be incorporated in part from copyleft sources in the public domain including wikis such as Wikipedia and AskDrWiki. Drug information for patients came from the The National Library of Medicine. Infectious disease information may have come from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Differential Diagnoses are drawn from clinicians as well as an amalgamation of 3 sources: 1.The Disease Database; 2. Kahan, Scott, Smith, Ellen G. In A Page: Signs and Symptoms. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishing, 2004:3; 3. Sailer, Christian, Wasner, Susanne. Differential Diagnosis Pocket. Hermosa Beach, CA: Borm Bruckmeir Publishing LLC, 2002:7 .
