1. Primary antibody deficiency and Crohn's disease
- Author
-
David Nicholson, Mansel Heaney, Aled Jones, Wynne Rees, Derek P. Jewell, Jonathan Shaffer, P Conlong, and Neil Snowden
- Subjects
Adult ,Diarrhea ,Male ,medicine.medical_specialty ,Pathology ,Short Report ,Disease ,Gastroenterology ,Inflammatory bowel disease ,Diagnosis, Differential ,Crohn Disease ,Internal medicine ,medicine ,Humans ,Crohn's disease ,biology ,business.industry ,Immunologic Deficiency Syndromes ,General Medicine ,Middle Aged ,medicine.disease ,digestive system diseases ,Granuloma ,Etiology ,biology.protein ,Female ,Steroids ,medicine.symptom ,Differential diagnosis ,Antibody ,business - Abstract
Summary Five patients with primary antibody deficiency were investigated because of intermittent but persistent diarrhoea of several years duration despite immunoglobulin replacement therapy. We found no evidence of Giardia lambia or other intestinal pathogens to explain their gastrointestinal symptoms. All five had definite radiological evidence of small bowel Crohn's disease and three had histological specimens available with abnormalities consistent with Crohn's disease. One patient had a non-caseating granuloma in an oral ulcer. A second patient with stricturing disease in the small bowel had a mucosal inflammatory infiltrate with non-caseating granulomas. A third had transmural inflammation but no granulomas. All five patents were diagnosed as having Crohn's disease and have responded symptomatically to steroid therapy.
- Published
- 1999