A Brunner's gland adenoma as a cause of anemia

Benign tumors of the small bowel are rare. They present with many different manifestations depending on the size and location, and also cause a variet y of symptoms that are often nonspecific. These include abdominal pain, dys pepsia, nausea, vomiting, and gastrointestinal bleeding that may be melena or hematemesis. Most of the time patients are asymptomatic and the lesions are discovered as an incidental finding. When bleeding occurs, and it may b e severe in certain situations, the patient may develop signs of anemia, su ch as dyspnea, fatigue, and even high-output cardiac failure. The authors p resent a patient who was evaluated for melena and who was found to have a d uodenal polyp that proved to be a Brunner's gland adenoma on pathology.