Endoscopic treatment of lower gastrointestinal bleeding.

Urgent colonoscopy has emerged as the initial diagnostic and main therapeutic tool in the evaluation and treatment of colonic lower gastrointestinal bleeding. Endoscopic therapy can effectively treat most cases of colonic bleeding with a demonstrable improvement in clinical outcome parameters. The identification of high-risk stigmata of hemorrhage enables selective targeting of endoscopic therapy to lesions at high risk of rebleeding.