BOF: 39
A sixty-year-old man who is known to have ischaemic heart
disease is admitted with a history of sudden onset abdominal pain, followed by
watery diarrhoea and subsequent profuse rectal bleeding.
The likely diagnosis is
a)
Small bowel infarction
b)
Large bowel infarction
c)
Volvulus of the sigmoid colon
d)
Colon cancer with intussusception
e)
Ulcerative colitis
Answer:
b)
The history of pain flowed by diarrhoea and bleeding per
rectum in a patient with known macro vascular disease is typical of large
bowel infarction, which occurs in the region of the splenic flexure.
