Diffuse angiodysplasia of the upper gastrointestinal tract in a patient with hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy

A 64-year-old woman with a known history of hypertrophic obstructive cardio myopathy presented with severe anemia of unknown origin. She had also suffe red from repeated episodes of upper gastrointestinal bleeding for the previ ous 3 years. Despite bone marrow examination and panendoscopic and angiogra phic studies, the origin of anemia remained undefined until a small bleedin g site was found during a duodenoscopic examination. The lesion proved to b e angiodysplasia. This case report is interesting in that angiodysplasia el icited gastrointestinal bleeding and was the cause of anemia. In the intern ational literature, there are very few reported cases of bleeding from gast rointestinal angiodysplasia in association with subvalvular aortic obstruct ion.