Peroperative enteroscopy in recurrent hemorrhage of the small intestine

: Two cases of severe, recurrent gastrointestinal bleeding due to a small vascular lesion of the small intestine are presented. In the two patients, the diagnosis was established by intra-operative enteroscopy; in the first patient during laparotomy carried out after negative preoperative investigations; in the second, 48 hours after a right ileo-colic resection was performed for Crohn's disease of the ileum thought to be the cause of the bleeding. These two cases confirm that intra-operative enteroscopy is a very effective method to detect bleeding from small intestinal lesions, and that it should be used when pre-operative investigations and intraoperative examination are unsuccessful.