Over-the-scope clips (OTSCs) substantially improved the endoscopic armamentarium for the treatment of severe GI bleeding and can potentially overcome limitations of standard clips. Data indicate a superiority of OTSCs in hemostasis as first- and second-line therapy. However, the impact of the OTSC designs, in particular the traumatic (-t) or atraumatic (-a) type, in duodenal ulcer bleeding has not been analyzed so far.

This was a retrospective analysis of a prospective collected database from 2009 to 2020 of 6 German endoscopic centers. All patients who underwent emergency endoscopy and were treated using an OTSC for duodenal ulcer bleeding were included. OTSC-t and OTSC-a patients were compared by the Fisher exact test, χ² test, or Mann-Whitney U test as appropriate. A propensity score–based 1:1 matching was performed to obtain equal distribution of baseline characteristics in both groups.

The entire cohort comprised 173 patients (93 OTSC-a, 80 OTSC-t). Age, gender, anticoagulant therapy, Rockall score, and treatment regimen had similar distributions in the 2 groups. However, the OTSC-t group showed significantly more active bleeding ulcers (Forrest Ia/b). Matching identified 132 patients (66 in both groups) with comparable baseline characteristics. Initial bleeding hemostasis (OTSC-a, 90.9%; OTSC-t, 87.9%; P = .82) and 72-hour mortality (OTSC-a, 4.5%; OTSC-t, 6.0%; P > .99) were not significantly different, but the OTSC-t group revealed a clearly higher rate of recurrent bleeding (34.9% vs 7.6%, P < .001) and necessity of red blood cell transfusions (5.1 ± 3.4 vs 2.5 ± 2.4 concentrates, P < .001).

For OTSC use, the OTSC-a should be the preferred option for duodenal ulcer bleeding.