GASTROINTESTINAL-BLEEDING OF OBSCURE ORIGIN - ROLE OF ENTEROCLYSIS

The purpose of this work was to assess retrospectively the yield of en teroclysis in 124 unselected patients presenting with obscure gastroin testinal bleeding. Of 1000 consecutive patients who were examined by e nteroclysis 124 presented with occult gastrointestinal bleeding. A tot al of 61 patients with an unknown source of bleeding at the time of di scharge, but with established gastrointestinal bleeding, were followed up by questionnaire to correlate the initial degree of bleeding with the incidence of recurrence of bleeding. Enteroclysis was normal in 10 9 cases. An abnormality was found subsequently be the cause of bleedin g in the small intestine in 16 patients. Enteroclysis was positive in 14 cases, negative in 2 and false positive in 1. There was positive co rrelation between the initial degree of haemorrhage and the rate of re currence. Enteroclysis detected the cause in 11% of patients who prese nted with bleeding of unknown origin. In patients with minor haemorrha ge there was no recurrence of bleeding in most cases.