INTRODUCTION: The early use of risk stratification scores is recommended for 
patients presenting with acute non-variceal upper gastrointestinal (GI) bleeds 
(ANVGIB). AIMS65 is a novel, recently derived scoring system, which has been 
proposed as an alternative to the more established Glasgow-Blatchford score 
(GBS).
OBJECTIVE: To validate the AIMS65 scoring system in a predominantly Caucasian 
population from Scotland and compare it with the GBS.
DESIGN: Retrospective study of patients presenting to a district general 
hospital in Scotland with a suspected diagnosis of ANVGIB who underwent 
inpatient upper GI endoscopy between March 2008 and March 2013.
OUTCOMES: The primary outcome measure was 30-day mortality. Secondary outcome 
measures were requirement for endoscopic intervention, endoscopy refractory 
bleeding, blood transfusion, rebleeding and admission to high dependency unit 
(HDU) and intensive care unit (ICU). The area under the receiver operating 
characteristic (AUROC) curve was calculated for each score.
RESULTS: 328 patients were included. Of these 65.9% (n=216) were men and 34.1% 
(n=112) women. The mean age was 65.2 years and 30-day mortality 5.2%. AIMS65 was 
superior to the GBS in predicting mortality, with an AUROC of 0.87 versus 0.70 
(p<0.05). The GBS was superior for blood transfusion (AUROC 0.84 vs 0.62, 
p<0.05) and admission to HDU (AUROC 0.73 vs 0.62, p<0.05). There were no 
significant differences between the scores with respect to requirement for 
endoscopic intervention, endoscopy refractory bleeding, rebleeding and admission 
to ICU.
CONCLUSIONS: AIMS65 accurately predicted mortality in a Scottish population of 
patients with ANVGIB. Large prospective studies are now required to establish 
the exact role of AIMS65 in triaging patients with ANVGIB.