National Institutes of Health
- The primary NIH organization for research on Gastrointestinal Bleeding is the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases
Your digestive or gastrointestinal (GI) tract includes the esophagus, stomach, small intestine, large intestine or colon, rectum and anus. Bleeding can come from one or more of these areas. The amount of bleeding can be so small that only a lab test can find it.
GI bleeding is not a disease, but a symptom of a disease. There are many possible causes of GI bleeding, including
The test used most often to look for the cause of GI bleeding is called endoscopy. It uses a flexible instrument inserted through the mouth or rectum to view the inside of the GI tract. A type of endoscopy called colonoscopy looks at the large intestine.
NIH: National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases
References and abstracts from MEDLINE/PubMed (National Library of Medicine)