Lower Gastrointestinal Bleed Playing Hide and Seek

Aditi Khurana; Shubha Gadde Ravindra; Sumit Garg; Jasim Jaleel; Devendra Kumar Yadav; Rakesh Kumar

doi:10.4103/ijnm.ijnm_127_22

Lower Gastrointestinal Bleed Playing Hide and Seek

Indian J Nucl Med. 2022 Oct-Dec;37(4):404-405. doi: 10.4103/ijnm.ijnm_127_22. Epub 2022 Dec 2.

Authors

Aditi Khurana¹, Shubha Gadde Ravindra¹, Sumit Garg¹, Jasim Jaleel¹, Devendra Kumar Yadav², Rakesh Kumar¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Nuclear Medicine, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India.
² Department of Paediatric Surgery, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India.

Abstract

A 13-year-old adolescent male presented with an episode of rectal bleed. He has had five such episodes in the past year where he witnessed black tarry stools mixed with fresh blood, painless, not associated with fever or hematemesis. Clinical examination revealed pallor and a soft, non-tender abdomen. Vitals were stable. Blood investigations revealed haemoglobin of 102g/L, WBC count of 10 X 109/L and platelet count of 165 × 109/L. The clotting screen was normal. Upper GI endoscopy and colonoscopy revealed no abnormality. The patient underwent Tc-99m pertechnetate scintigraphy to look for Meckel's Diverticulum in view of painless lower GI bleed.

Keywords: 99mTc-pertechnetate scintigraphy; Meckel's diverticulum; ectopic gastric mucosa; melena; single-photon emission computed tomography.