Colonic angiodysplasia in a chronic renal failure patient

An important cause of intestinal bleeding in patients with chronic renal failure is angiodysplasia. In retrospective reports up to 19-32% of patients had bleeding from angiodysplastic lesions. These are usually multiple, have a high tendency of rebleeding (25-47%) and are often located in the stomach and duodenum, but can affect the colon and the jejunum as well. Bleeding from angiodysplastic lesions is usually low grade and stops spontaneously in more than 90% of patients, but some times may be life threatening necessitate therapeutic interventions to achieve hemostasis. We report a case of an 18-year old female with renal failure on CAPD who presented a massive lower gastrointestinal bleeding and imposed emergency surgery.