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Background: Crohn's colitis, frequently accompanied by stenosis or narrowing, can be difficult to assess through conventional methods. We evaluated the usefulness of virtual computed tomographic colonography (CTC) for the detection of colonic lesions due to Crohn's disease.Methods: Forty-two lesions in 33 patients with Crohn's disease were examined by CTC and barium enema (BE). Twenty-two patients also were examined by colonoscopy (CS). The visualization ability of CTC was compared with those of the other two methods.Results: In the visualization of elevated lesions, there was no significant difference between CTC and BE (18 of 20, p = 0.487) or between CTC and CS (15 of 16, p = 0.99); however, ulcerative lesions were less often visualized by CTC. However, CTC enabled identification of serious lesions in the colon proximal to the stenosis in nine patients and was superior to BE and CS in terms of its ability to visualize the proximal site of the stenosis (p = 0.003).Conclusion: CTC is clinically useful for the evaluation of Crohn's colitis, especially those with stenotic lesions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The prevalence of Helicobacter pylori infection in Crohn's disease (CD) patients was investigated to determine whether the presence and severity of gastroduodenal lesions were related to H. pylori infection.Methods: Infection rates were compared between CD group (n = 90) and the control group (n = 525). Correlations between endoscopically detected lesions and H. pylori positive rates were investigated. The relationship between drug therapy and the prevalence of H. pylori infection was also analyzed.Results: H. pylori-positive rate of the 90 CD patients attending our clinic was 16.7%, significantly lower than the rate in healthy controls (40.2%) (P = 0.0001). The involvement of H. pylori infection in the gastroduodenal lesions of CD patients was also examined. The prevalence of gastroduodenal lesions in all CD patients was high, 92.2%. The lesions observed included ulcers, erosion, and "bamboo joint-like lesions" of the stomach, and ulcers, erosion, stenosis, and elevated lesions of the duodenum. None of these lesions were found to be related to H. pylori infection. However, H. pylori infection was found to exacerbate gastric ulcers (P = 0.036). The analysis of a possible relationship between a history of drug therapy and the low prevalence of H. pylori infection in CD patients showed that the prevalence of H. pylori infection was significantly lower in patients who had received antibiotics for 2 weeks or more (P = 0.002).Conclusions: The results suggest that H. pylori infection is essentially unrelated to the gastroduodenal lesions observed in CD. It seems likely, however, that H. pylori infection may exacerbate gastric ulcers and that H. pylori can be eradicated by prolonged use of antibiotics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]