HEREDITARY hemorrhagic telangiectasia (Rendu-Osler-Weber disease) is a hereditary vascular anomaly characterized pathologically by multiple dilatations of capillaries and venules of the skin and mucous membranes and characterized clinically by recurrent hemorrhage from these telangiectasia, most frequently manifested by epistaxis. The entity is often overlooked or the bleeding attributed to some other cause, especially a blood dyscrasia. In gastrointestinal bleeding, peptic ulcer is often suspected, and, indeed, the two conditions may be present concurrently.
The condition was probably first reported by Sutton,1 in 1864, as internal hemorrhage and telangiectasia of the skin. The following year Babington 2 described a family showing a tendency to epistaxis but made no mention of the presence of telangiectasia of the skin or mucous membrane in any members of the family. Rendu,3 in 1896, reported a case of a 52-year-old man who suffered from repeated epistaxis and who had small superficial angiomata of the