A rare cause of recurrent gastrointestinal bleeding: mesenteric hemangioma

We present a 25-year-old female who was admitted to the emergency room with recurrent lower gastrointestinal bleeding. An intraluminal bleeding mass inside the small intestinal segment was detected during explorative laparotomy as the cause of the recurrent lower gastrointestinal bleeding. After partial resection of small bowel segment, the histopathologic examination revealed a cavernous hemagioma of mesenteric origin.Although rare, gastrointestinal hemangioma should be thought in differential diagnosis as a cause of recurrent lower gastrointestinal bleeding.Lower gastrointestinal hemorrhage is defined as an abnormal intraluminal blood loss from a source distal to the ligament of Treitz. Lower gastrointestinal hemorrhage can be due to numerous conditions, including diverticulosis, anorectal diseases, benign or malignant neoplasias, inflammatory bowel disease, and angiodysplasias. Coagulopathies can also be the cause of lower gastrointestinal bleeding. Although hemangiomas can be seen in liver, osseous tissues, mediastinum, soft tissues and other organs, intestinal hemangiomas of mesenteric origin are extremely rare.We report a case of mesenteric hemangioma of small intestine causing lower gastrointestinal bleeding.A 25-year-old female was admitted to the emergency room with fatigue, recurrent black stools. She was hospitalized because of gastrointestinal hemorrhage. Profuse anemia with a hemoglobin level of 4.4 g/dl and the hematocrit 17% was detected. Three packs of red blod cell were transfused immediately. She did not have obvious hematochesia The upper gastrointestinal endoscopy did not show any bleeding lesion. An antral gastritis was only detected during the gastroduodenoscopy. Double contrast barium enema was also normal. We canceled the previously scheduled colonoscopic examination after detecting a 5 × 4 cm sized abdominal mass in the small bowel mesentery through abdominal computed tomography (Figure 1). Surgical exploration was planned. During the explor