A Case of Angiodysplasia of the Colon in Youth

Yoichiro Yamanaka, Masahiko Onda, Noritake Tanaka, Norio Matsukura, Takashi Nakamura, Shigemasa Aoki, Koji Sasajima, Eiji Uchida, Tadashi Kobayashi, Takayuki Aimoto, Goro Asano*

First Department of Surgery, Nippon Medical School
*Department of Pathology, Nippon Medical School

A 21-year-old Japanese man complained of chronic recurrent gastrointestinal bleeding. Superior mesenteric arteriography revealed an arterio-venous malformation in the ileocecum, and ileocecal resection was performed. Histologically, the lesion was ileocecal angiodysplasia mainly in the cecum. The area of angiodysplasia contained numerous dilated and tortuous thin-walled vessels, one of which was ruptured, in the mucosal and the submucosal areas. The predominant site of bleeding intestinal angiodysplasia is the cecum or ascending colon in elderly patients, for whom selective visceral angiography (SVA) and colonoscopy are commonly used for diagnosis. What makes this case noteworthy is that the patient was young and the presence of colonic angiodysplasia was revealed only after SVA identified the lesion.

Key words
angiodysplasia of young adult, angiodysplasia of the colon, gastrointestinal hemorrhage

Reprint requests
Yoichiro Yamanaka First Department of Surgery, Nippon Medical School
1-1-5 Sendagi, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 113 JAPAN

Accepted
October 11, 1990

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