Objective To investigate the clinical features of adult inpatients with abdominal type Henoch-Schonlein purpura(HSP)and to compare them with those without gastrointestinal symptoms.Methods The adult inpatients with HSP during January 2000 and December 2005 were reviewed retrospectively,and the clinical features of those with or without abdominal pain were compared.Results Sixty-three patients were included.Thirty-two patients(50.8%)complained of abdominal pain.Of these patients,43.8% had peri-umbilical colicky pain,40.6% middle-upper abdominal pain and 15.6% lower abdominal pain.The other clinical manifestations included nausea/vomiting(15.6%),positive feces occult blood test(50.0%)and elevated blood/urine amylase(25.0%).EGD showed mucosal congestion,red macula,erosion and ulceration mainly in the descending duodenum.Colonscopy showed inflammatory and ulcerative lesions at distal ileum and rectosigmoid.The biopsy pathology showed non-specific inflammatory cell infiltration.There were no differences in age,gender,allergic history and predisposing infection between those with abdominal pain and those without abdominal symptoms.The patients with abdominal pain had more mixed-type HSP(78.1% vs 22.6%,P