Article Text

Download PDFPDF
CASE REPORT
Oesophageal presentation of Crohn's disease
  1. Sara Monteiro1,
  2. Maria João Moreira1,
  3. José Manuel Ribeiro1,
  4. José Cotter1,2
  1. 1Department of Gastroenterology, Hospital da Senhora da Oliveira-Guimarães, Guimarães, Portugal
  2. 2School of Medicine, Universidade do Minho, Braga, Portugal
  1. Correspondence to Dr Sara Monteiro, sara.s.o.monteiro{at}gmail.com

Summary

Crohn's disease (CD) is characterised by a transmural inflammatory process, which can affect any part of the digestive tract; however, CD with oesophageal presentation is rare. We report a case of a previously healthy young woman with symptoms of dysphagia, odynophagia, chest pain and weight loss, who presented oesophageal ulcers at upper endoscopy and whose histology revealed granulomatous oesophagitis. After complementary study, a mild ileocaecal involvement of CD was demonstrated. The patient became asymptomatic with proton pump inhibitor and a course of prednisolone. Mucosal healing was obtained after maintenance therapy with azathioprine. In the absence of extraoesophageal symptoms, oesophageal CD may be overlooked. CD must always be considered as differential diagnosis in the presence of oesophageal ulcers.

Statistics from Altmetric.com

Request Permissions

If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

Footnotes

  • Contributors SM performed literature search and drafted the manuscript. MJM, JMR and JC critically revised the manuscript and approved the final version to be submitted.

  • Competing interests None declared.

  • Patient consent Obtained.

  • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.