OCCULT GASTROINTESTINAL BLEEDING Occult gastrointestinal bleeding In this context occult means that blood or its breakdown products are present in the stool but cannot be seen by the naked eye. Occult bleeding may reach 200 mL per day, cause iron deficiency anaemia and signify serious gastrointestinal disease. Any cause of gastrointestinal bleeding may be responsible but the most important is colorectal cancer, particularly carcinoma of the caecum which may have no gastrointestinal symptoms. In clinical practice, investigation of the gastrointestinal tract should be considered whenever a patient presents with unexplained iron deficiency anaemia. Testing the stool for the presence of blood is unnecessary and should not influence whether or not the gastrointestinal tract is imaged because bleeding from tumours is often intermittent and a negative faecal occult blood (FOB) test does not exclude important gastrointestinal disease. Many colorectal cancer patients are FOB-negative at presentation, and the only value of FOB testing is as a means of screening for colonic disease in asymptomatic populations #LMD
Posted on: Sat, 21 Sep 2013 15:20:31 +0000
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