Article Text

Download PDFPDF
CASE REPORT
Dieulafoy’s Lesion In The Oesophagus: A Rare Cause Of Upper Gastrointestinal Bleeding
  1. Divyesh Reddy Nemakayala1,
  2. Manoj P Rai1,
  3. Julie L Yam2,
  4. Heather Laird-Fick3
  1. 1 Internal Medicine, Michigan State University / Sparrow Hospital, Lansing, Michigan, United States of America
  2. 2 Department of Gastroenterology, McLaren-Greater Lansing Hospital, Lansing, Michigan, USA
  3. 3 Department of Internal Medicine, Michigan State University, Lansing, Michigan, USA
  1. Correspondence to Dr Manoj P Rai, manojrai029{at}gmail.com

Summary

A Dieulafoy’s lesion is defined as a dilated, aberrant, submucosal artery that erodes overlying mucosa in the absence of an underlying ulcer, aneurysm or intrinsic mural abnormality. It is a rare cause of upper gastrointestinal (GI) bleed with a very high mortality rate if it goes unidentified. It is most commonly located in the lesser curvature of the stomach but is extremely rare in the oesophagus. We are reporting a 55-year-old man who had massive haematemesis. Emergent endoscopy showed Dieulafoy’s lesion in the distal oesophagus. It was sclerosed using endoscopic therapy. Patient’s symptoms of GI bleeding resolved, and he was discharged home in a stable manner. Although a Dieulafoy’s lesion is exceedingly rare in the oesophagus, it is associated with a high mortality if undiscovered. Its amenability to life-saving endoscopic therapy prompts us to keep this as a possible differential diagnosis of an upper GI bleed.

  • gi bleeding
  • endoscopy
  • gastroenterology

Statistics from Altmetric.com

Request Permissions

If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

Footnotes

  • DRN and MPR contributed equally.

  • Contributors DRN: substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work, or the acquisition, analysis or interpretation of data. DRN and MPR: drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content. DRN, MPR and JY: final approval of the version published. HL-F: agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

  • Competing interests None declared.

  • Patient consent Obtained.

  • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.