Abstract

Tuberculous involvement of the colon is an uncommon clinical entity. Other colonic disease which should be considered in the differential diagnosis include inflammatory bowel disease such as Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis and colon cancer. Intestinal tuberculosis most frequently involves the ileocecal area. The common presenting symptoms are abdominal pain, fever, weight loss and malabsorption. Pathologically, tuberculous colitis may present as an ulcerative type, hypertrophic type or in combination. Massive bleeding is said to be very rare even in the ulcerative type because of an obliterative endarteritis. We report a case of colonic tuberculosis presenting with massive bleeding in 52-year-old man with alcoholic liver cirrhosis, which was diagnosed by colonoscopic biopsy and acid-fast stain. (Korean J Gastrointest Endosc 2005;30:164⁣167)

• Keywords: Colon, Tuberculosis, Bleeding