Acute gastrointestinal hemorrhage of small-bowel origin.

Abstract
Of 305 patients with acute gastrointestinal (GI) bleeding, the site was the small bowel in 16. In all cases the cause was proved at surgery or autopsy: diagnoses included vascular malformation, aorto-enteric fistula, primary or metastatic tumor, ulcer, tuberculous ileitis and sarcoidosis. While it is uncommon for acute GI bleeding to originate in the small bowel, .apprx. 1/3 of the patients with acute rectal bleeding in this series had a bleeding site in the small bowel.