A Case of Angiodysplasia of the Colon in Youth

Abstract

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.