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Familial colonic varices — a cause of "polyposis" on barium enema

Departments of ¹ Gastroenterology and ² Clinical Radiology, Nottingham City Hospital, Hucknall Road, Nottingham, NG7 1PB, UK

Correspondence: Dr James Bebb, Department of Gastroenterology, King's Mill Hospital, Mansfield Road, Sutton in Ashfield, Nottinghamshire, NG17 4JL, UK. E-mail: jamesbebb{at}doctors.org.uk

A 61-year-old woman with diarrhoea had multiple filling defects on a barium enema and was assumed to have multiple colonic polyps. However, colonoscopy showed colonic varices and relatively few true polyps. She bled significantly after polypectomy of a tubular adenoma. There was no evidence to support a diagnosis of portal hypertension or liver disease. A case report of her father's idiopathic colonic varices has previously been reported in this journal in 1985, and we update his subsequent progress and discuss other reports of this rare condition.