Question

A 25 year old female presents to her primary care physician for recurrent abdominal pain. She reports that she had daily episodes of cramping, lower abdominal pain and multiple episodes of diarrhea a day for 6 months. Her diarrhea has been bloody and she has been experiencing unintentional weight loss of 4.5 kg over the past 3 months. An abdominal examination reveals that she has diffuse tenderness. A rectal examination is significant for frank blood. Her CBC reveals that she has Fe deficiency anemia.

Questions

1. What is the most likely diagnosis?

2. What layer or layers of the gut wall is/are inflamed?

Answer 1

Answer :

1) According to the signs and symptoms the patient may be diagnosed as having irritable bowel syndrome or inflammatory bowel disease in which a patient will have recurrent abdominal pain, chronic diarrhoea and so on as mentioned.

2) In inflammatory bowel disease we have types. Ulcerative colitis is one of the types which consists of long lasting inflammation and sores (ulcers) in the innermost layers of the large intestine and rectum. These sores and inflammation leads to the bloody stools which leads to the blood loss gradually through the defecation process and eventually lowers the heamoglobin level leading to anaemia.