Spontaneous healing of a gastro-colic fistula due to a benign gastric ulcer.

Gastro-colic fistula is an uncommon complication of a benign gastric ulcer (Laufer et al., 1976). The commonest causes of a gastro-colic fistula are carcinoma of the stomach, carcinoma of the colon and previous gastric surgery for peptic ulcer disease (Allison, 1973; Cody et al., 1975) and surgery is the treatment of choice. We report a case of gastro-colic fistula due to a benign gastric ulcer, which healed spontaneously without treatment. Only one previous case of spontaneous healing of a gastro-colic fistula has been described (Rivera, 1972) and this patient subsequently had surgery to exclude an underlying malignant disease.