Four months of diet supplementation with fish oil in patients with inflammatory bowel disease resulted in reductions in rectal dialysate leukotriene B4 levels, improvements in histologic findings, and weight gain.
The prevalence, predictors, and significance of pneumatosis were determined in 50 patients with Crohn's disease who had abdominal CT scans to rule out abscess. The presence or absence of six CT descriptors and 17 clinical descriptors was documented. CT scans of a control group of 50 subjects without inflammatory bowel disease were also examined. Data was analyzed by two-sample t tests and Fisher's exact test. Pneumatosis was found in six of 50 patients with Crohn's disease and in none of the controls. Corticosteroid treatment was the single clinical variable relating significantly (P = 0.025) to pneumatosis, although trends toward absence of resection, short duration of illness, and more severe anemia were also evident in this group. This study suggests that the presence of pneumatosis alone does not dictate a specific course of treatment, but when pneumatosis is present, careful monitoring is required and therapy is based on the overall clinical picture.
The results of the conventional 5-hour d-xylose absorption test were surveyed in 38 subjects with disease of the jejunal mucosa, giardiasis or bacterial overgrowth, or no small-bowel disorder. The test was in error in 20-40% of cases, depending on the disease category, and the error for the entire group was 30%. We conclude that the test yields little guidance for diagnosis or therapy of clinical problems and is superfluous when a jejunal biopsy can be obtained.
SUMMARY Because little is known of the phagocytes of the human colon we enumerated these cells in mucosal suspensions and studied their phagocytic activity. Phagocyte rich suspensions were made by EDTA
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