We report two cirrhotic patients who succumbed to massive rectal bleeding. The source of this hemorrhage remained undiscovered clinically despite endoscopy, a bleeding scan, and celiac angiogram in one patient. Autopsy revealed that the source of the bleeding was rectal varices in both cases.
Endoscopy was used over a five-year period to determine the cause of acute or chronic gastrointestinal (GI) tract bleeding in 46 patients receiving long-term hemodialysis. Nine (19%) of the patients were found to be bleeding from telangiectasias. We observed the occurrence of such lesions in the stomach, the small bowel, and the colon. Endoscopic cauterization of the lesions in three patients and jejunal resection in another stopped previously recurrent GI tract bleeding.
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