Crohn's disease

Introduction: Crohn's disease

Crohn's disease: Crohn's disease causes inflammation in the small intestine. Crohn's disease usually occurs in the lower part of the small intestine, called the ... more about Crohn's disease.

Crohn's disease: Chronic autoimmune inflammatory bowel disease affecting digestion. More detailed information about the symptoms, causes, and treatments of Crohn's disease is available below.

Symptoms of Crohn's disease

• Digestive problems - The classic symptoms are severe digestive problems such as:
  • Abdominal pain
  • Abdominal cramping
  • Abdominal swelling
  • Abdominal tenderness

See full list of 20 symptoms of Crohn's disease

Medical Textbooks Online about Crohn's disease

Book excerpts: Copyright © 2008 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. All rights reserved.

Diagnostic Tests for Crohn's disease

• Physical examination
• Complete blood count - for anemia and white blood cell counts
• Stool sample analysis
• Upper GI series - barium X-rays
• Lower GI series - barium X-rays

See full list of 7 diagnostic tests for Crohn's disease

Wrongly Diagnosed with Crohn's disease?

• Misdiagnosis of Crohn's disease
• Failure to diagnose Crohn's disease
• Underlying causes of Crohn's disease (possibly wrongly diagnosed)
• Failure to diagnose Crohn's disease

Misdiagnosis and Crohn's disease

Chronic digestive conditions often misdiagnosed: When diagnosing chronic symptoms of the digestive tract, there are a variety of conditions that may be misdiagnosed. The best known, irritable bowel...read more »

Intestinal bacteria disorder may be hidden cause: One of the lesser known causes of diarrhea is an imbalance of bacterial in the gut, sometimes called intestinal imbalance. The digestive system contains a...read more »

Antibiotics often causes diarrhea: The use of antibiotics are very likely to cause some level of diarrhea in patients. The reason is that antibiotics kill off not only "bad" bacteria, but can also kill the "good"...read more »

Food poisoning may actually be an infectious disease: Many people who come down with "stomach symptoms" like diarrhea assume that it's "something I ate" (i.e. food poisoning). In fact, it's more likely to be...read more »

Mesenteric adenitis misdiagnosed as appendicitis in children: Because appendicitis is one of the more feared conditions for a child with abdominal pain,...read more »

Celiac disease often fails to be diagnosed cause of chronic digestive symptoms: One of the most common chronic digestive conditions is celiac disease, a malabsorption disorder with a variety of symptoms (see symptoms of celiac...read more »

Chronic digestive diseases hard to diagnose: There is an inherent difficulty in diagnosing the various types of chronic digestive diseases. Some of the better known possibilities are peptic ulcer, colon cancer...read more »

Read more about Misdiagnosis and Crohn's disease

Causes of Crohn's disease

Read more about causes of Crohn's disease.

More information about causes of Crohn's disease:

• Crohn's disease as a symptom

Treatments for Crohn's disease

• Diet changes
  • Nutrition supplements
  • Vitamin supplements
  • High-calorie liquid formulas
  • Intravenous feeding - in severe cases

See full list of 28 treatments for Crohn's disease

Videos for Crohn's disease

Patient Surveys for Crohn's disease

• Patient Profile Survey
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• Survey about the symptoms of your Crohn's disease
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Prognosis for Crohn's disease

Prognosis for Crohn's disease: Some people have long periods of remission, sometimes years, when they are free of symptoms. However, the disease usually recurs at various times over a person's lifetime. This changing pattern of the disease means one cannot always tell when a treatment has helped. Predicting when a remission may occur or when symptoms will return is not possible. (Source: excerpt from Crohn's Disease: NIDDK) ... People with Crohn's disease may feel well and be free of symptoms for substantial spans of time when their disease is not active. Despite the need to take medication for long periods of time and occasional hospitalizations, most people with Crohn's disease are able to hold jobs, raise families, and function successfully at home and in society. (Source: excerpt from Crohn's Disease: NIDDK)

More about prognosis of Crohn's disease

Reseach about Crohn's disease

Visit our research pages for current research about Crohn's disease treatments.

Clinical Trials for Crohn's disease

The US based website ClinicalTrials.gov lists information on both federally and privately supported clinical trials using human volunteers.

Some of the clinical trials listed on ClinicalTrials.gov for Crohn's disease include:

• Extracorporeal Photopheresis Therapy to Treat Crohn's Disease - This study is currently recruiting patients (Current: 23 Nov 2006) - Uvadex
• Extracorporeal Photopheresis to Maintain Symptoms Remission During Steroid Withdrawal in Patients With Steroid-Dependent Crohn's Disease - This study has been completed (Current: 23 Nov 2006) - UVADEX and UVAR XTS Photopheresis System
• Safety and Efficacy of ALX-0600 in Subjects With Active Crohn's Disease Who Completed Protocol CL0600-008 - This study is no longer recruiting patients (Current: 23 Nov 2006) - Teduglutide
• Study Evaluating rhIL-11 in Active Crohns Disease - This study has been completed (Current: 23 Nov 2006) - Recombinant Human Interleukin-11 (rhIL-11)
• A Study of the Safety and Efficacy of Inflixiamb (Remicade) in Pediatric Patients With Crohn's Disease - This study is no longer recruiting patients (Current: 23 Nov 2006) - infliximab

See full list of 132 Clinical Trials for Crohn's disease

Statistics for Crohn's disease

• Medical statistics for Crohn's disease
• Prevalence and incidence statistics for Crohn's disease
• Death and Mortality statistics for Crohn's disease
• Society statistics for Crohn's disease

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User Interactive Forums

Read about other experiences, ask a question about Crohn's disease, or answer someone else's question, on our message boards:

• I can not get a diagnosis. Please help.
• Tell us your medical story.
• Share your misdiagnosis story.
• What is the best treatment for this?
• See all the forums.

Article Excerpts about Crohn's disease

Crohn's disease causes inflammation in the small intestine. Crohn's disease usually occurs in the lower part of the small intestine, called the ileum, but it can affect any part of the digestive tract, from the mouth to the anus. The inflammation extends deep into the lining of the affected organ. The inflammation can cause pain and can make the intestines empty frequently, resulting in diarrhea.

Crohn's disease is an inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), the general name for diseases that cause inflammation in the intestines. (Source: excerpt from Crohn's Disease: NIDDK)

Definitions of Crohn's disease:

A gastrointestinal disorder characterized by chronic inflammation involving all layers of the intestinal wall, noncaseating granulomas affecting the intestinal wall and regional lymph nodes, and transmural fibrosis. Crohn's disease most commonly involves the terminal ileum; the colon is the second most common site of involvement. --2004 - (Source - Diseases Database)

A serious chronic and progressive inflammation of the ileum producing frequent bouts of diarrhea with abdominal pain and nausea and fever and weight loss - (Source - WordNet 2.1)

Ophanet, a consortium of European partners, currently defines a condition rare when it affects 1 person per 2,000. They list Crohn's disease as a "rare disease".
Source - Orphanet