Inflammatory Bowel Disease & Colitis

Inflammatory bowel disease includes:

• Ischaemic colitis
• Ulcerative colitis
• Crohn’s disease
• Infective colitis

Ischaemic colitis is the most common form of intestinal ischaemia and in most cases is transient and reversible. The colon is predisposed to ischemic insult due to its poor collateral circulation, low blood flow and high bacterial content with the splenic flexure, recto-sigmoid junction and the more frequent involvement of the right colon.

This diagnosis should be considered in patients presenting with abdominal pain and bloody diarrhoea.

Older adults are most likely to experience ischemia-related colitis because of underlying risk factors such as relative hypotension, heart failure, and arrhythmias [13].

A simple stool culture could reveal infective causes such as Salmonella, Shigella and Campylobacter.