Crohn's disease of the upper gastrointestinal tract

Crohn’s disease in the upper gastrointestinal tract. Own experience and review of the literature

“…In a study performed in Ireland on children with CD, oral involvement was found in one third of examined patients [7]. Combining the clinical, endoscopic, histopathological and radiological findings is essential to achieve the diagnosis of CD [8,12]. However, the symptoms are related to the location of the disease.…”

“…Only a few of the abnormalities described by them could be representative of CD, e.g. gingivitis and diffuse swelling of lips and cheeks [7,8,11]. The lesions can also appear as recurrent, linear in shape and aphthous type ulcerations, erythematous or cobblestone.…”

“…In contrast, D Hean revealed 14 cases of 124 examined patients (11.2%) in 1994 [15]. The symptoms related to oesophageal manifestation are usually observed among patients with already diagnosed CD [3,8]. Isolated oesophageal manifestation of CD is unusual [16].…”

“…We identified 7 patients with the diagnosis of CD in the upper gastrointestinal tract, which is 1.04% of the total hospitalizations due to CD. According to the literature, the appearance of CD in the upper gastrointestinal tract is at the level of 0.5-13% [8,9].…”

“…Then cough or pneumonia will be dominant symptom [8,14]. In the clinical view, dysphagia and weight loss were the most typical symptoms in the first case, whereas in the third heartburn and odynophagia were observed.…”