The Role of Endoscopy in Managing Acute Lower Gastrointestinal Bleeding

In this issue of the Journal, Jensen et al. report their experience with the use of colonoscopy performed on an urgent basis for the diagnosis and treatment of acute hemorrhage from colonic diverticulosis. 1 The study has two key messages. The first is that the endoscopic findings that characterize recent hemorrhage, routinely used in the evaluation of acute upper gastrointestinal bleeding, are also useful in establishing the diagnosis in a subgroup of patients with colonic diverticular hemorrhage. This group of findings, referred to as stigmata of recent hemorrhage, includes active bleeding (e.g., arterial spurting), nonbleeding visible vessels, appearing as discrete pigmented . . .