CASE REPORTS   

Panminerva Medica 2001 March;43(1):53-5

Copyright © 2009 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

Collagenous colitis in symptomatic subjects without endoscopic morphologic evidence. Case report

Sumberaz A., Valentini M., Delehaye E., Gentile R., Testino G.

From the Department of Gastroenterology *Department of Pathology San Martino Hospital, Genoa, Italy

Collagenous col­itis (CC) is a ­rare pathol­o­gy and, ­even ­though var­i­ous etiop­a­thog­e­net­ic hypoth­e­ses ­have ­been put for­ward, the eti­ol­o­gy and pathol­o­gy are ­still not ­well ­defined. We ­report the ­case of a ­female ­patient suf­fer­ing ­from chron­ic ­watery diar­rhoea, pos­i­tive for ­guaiac-­based ­fecal ­occult ­blood ­test and mor­pho­log­i­cal­ly neg­a­tive to endo­scop­ic inves­ti­ga­tion, but his­to­log­i­cal­ly clas­si­fi­able as CC. This ­case ­report sug­gests ­that the clin­i­cal his­to­ry ­must ­lead ­towards the exe­cu­tion of a colons­co­py ­with biop­tic sam­ples ­done ­even on appar­ent­ly nor­mal muco­sa. Furthermore, the clin­ic ­should always sig­nal a sus­pect CC to the anat­o­mop­a­thol­o­gist in ­order to ­have a cor­rect diag­no­sis.