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Small bowel bleeding is a difficult condition to manage. Its most common source, gastrointestinal angiodysplasia (GIAD), can be located anywhere within the small bowel and difficult to detect. Medical therapy is generally ineffective, although the somatostatin analogues (octreotide and lanreotide) offer theoretical mechanistic benefits including reduced portal and mesenteric blood flows, decreased acid secretion, and inhibition of vasodilatory peptides.
In a retrospective case series, researchers described outcomes in 27 patients with recurrent small bowel bleeding who received long-term treatment with lanreotide at a single center. Their mean age was 77 years, and 63% were taking anticoagulants or antiplatelets when they began lanreotide th…