Clinical Features of Small Bowel Crohn’s Disease

Abstract

Crohn’s disease is one of the inflammatory bowel diseases of unclear etiology. The inflammation can involve the entire gastrointestinal tract from the oral cavity to the anus. The condition develops at a young age and shows chronic progression by repeated improvement and deterioration. Crohn’s disease may lead to severe complications such as perforation, stricture, fistula, and abscess formation. About one-third of patients with Crohn’s disease have only the small intestine affected, while another one-third of patients involve both the small bowel and colon. Crohn’s disease patients affecting the small intestine show different clinical features and undergo different diagnostic modalities and have prognoses different from those of patients with the colonic disease. It can be based on the anatomical and physiologic differences between the small intestine and the colon. Additionally, the small intestine is not easily accessible by endoscopy, thereby presenting challenges to disease diagnosis in the early stages. Small-bowel Crohn’s disease is known to be difficult to differentiate from other infectious diseases such as intestinal tuberculosis and drug-induced enteropathy. In addition, it has been reported to have a high risk of complications such as stricture and recurrence. This chapter briefly reviews the incidence of small-bowel Crohn’s disease and its clinical features.