Gastrointestinal Disorders

Some 30% of cases of acute appendicitis in children are associated with appendicolith.

The patient is 50 years old and has no family history of colon cancer. Should he have a repeated colonoscopy at 1 year? 5 years? 10 years?

In the absence of well-defined post-op management, how would you proceed?

Potential for infection is everywhere for patients with alcoholic cirrhosis.

A medication change? Repeat colonoscopy with chromoendoscopy? Colectomy? Other?

Eosinophilic esophagitis is often misdiagnosed as gastroesophageal reflux disease but does not respond to acid suppression therapy. Here, a close-to-textbook case.

See if the results of this 62-year-old woman's colonoscopy help you identify the source of her abdominal pain.

A link was found between low vitamin A levels and the incidence of diarrhea with vomiting and cough with fever.

Which of the following extraintestinal manifestations of inflammatory bowel disease often parallels disease activity?

These presenting symptoms began after a near syncopal episode. The patient has no significant medical or surgical history. More details, here.

The types of digestive disorders are many, and the symptoms vary widely. This week's photo quiz offers a variety of presentations to test your diagnostic acumen.

Here’s an opportunity for primary care to have a major impact on patients with a specialty-treated disease. Specialists will never boost vaccination rates to where they need to be. It’s just not what they do.

All patients with inflammatory bowel disease are at risk for anemia at any stage of their illness. In the past few years, there has been been increasing acceptance of the safety, efficacy, and speed of correcting deficiency with intravenous iron. Here: the pros and cons of oral vs IV supplementation.

These data suggest it may be worth a try-before moving on to potentially more dangerous drugs.

Fourteen state legislatures have passed legislation mandating that retail stores provide access to employee bathrooms for individuals with ulcerative colitis and Crohn disease and other medical needs.

Results are in on the maintenance phase of the TAXIT trial that employed infliXImab to treat patients with Crohn Disease and ulcerative colitis. Details here.

It's easy to mistake other serious gastrointestinal problems for inflammatory bowel disease. Here: clinical pearls that can help you recognize the IBD mimics.

This first report of effectiveness in a single case study should prompt additional research and placebo-controlled trials.

In case primary care physicians need another reason to pay attention to the overuse of antibiotics for nonbacterial illnesses.

Patients may be intimidated by their gastroenterologists, so it’ll probably fall on primary care to field them.

The Affordable Care Act comes none too soon for some of these patients.

And most have received treatments aimed at modifying immune system responses to control their disease.

The patient specifically reports difficulty swallowing at the level of the sternal notch. An upper endoscopy 10 years ago found no abnormality. Which of these tests makes sense now?

A young woman with a history of a desmoid tumor as a child undergoes a screening colonoscopy. What gene mutation is suggested by the finding of multiple adenomatous polyps?

A classic sign helps determine the diagnosis. Do you recognize it?