Lee J, Costantini TW, Coimbra R.; Scand J Surg. 2009;98(3):135-142.
Lower gastrointestinal bleeding is a common cause for hospital admission that results in sig-nificant morbidity and mortality. After initial resuscitation of the patient, the diagnosis and treatment of lower gastrointestinal bleeding remains a challenge for acute care surgeons. Iden-tifying the source of bleeding can be difficult since many patients bleed intermittently or stop bleeding spontaneously.
It is therefore important for the acute care surgeon to be familiar with the different diagnostic and therapeutic modalities and their advantages and disadvantages in order to guide the management of the acutely bleeding patient. This review summarizes the current methods available for the diagnosis and treatment of acute lower gastrointestinal bleeding and proposes an algorithm for the management of these patients.
Weblink here