The commonest cause of significantly lower gastrointestinal bleed in a middle aged person without any known precipitating factor may be due to: March 2008, September 2010

Ans. D: Diveiculum of sigmoid colon Most people with uncomplicated colonic diveiculosis are asymptomatic. A small propoion of these patients may have troublesome symptoms, such as colicky abdominal pain, bloating, flatulence, or altered bowel habit. The symptoms characteristically disappear after defecation or passage of flatus. On clinical examination, they may have tenderness in the left iliac fossa with no signs or symptoms of peritonitis or systemic illness, and all laboratory values may be within normal limits. The clinical picture of symptomatic uncomplicated diveiculosis often overlaps with that of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), because these two clinical entities are usually diagnosed after other pathologies are excluded. Bleeding alone can sometimes be the only sign of colonic diveiculosis