[Edema, a manifestation of digestive tract disease]

The development of generalized edema is the consequence of a decreased level of proteins in the plasma, due to a deficient intake or exaggerated loss. The gastrointestinal system may cause this deficiency at three different levels. We report three clinical cases of protein losing enteropathy at different locations, such as: giant hypertrophy of the gastric mucosa, intestinal lymphangiectasia and Crohn's disease. In each case we tried to demonstrate the sites that could mainly be affected in the gastrointestinal system and taking into consideration that these are rare entities, we made a brief description of them.