Crohn disease (CD) is a chronic inflammatory bowel disease that affects the entire gastrointestinal tract but is most frequently localized to the large and small bowel. Small bowel endoscopy helps with the differential diagnosis of CD in suspected CD patients. Early diagnosis of CD is preferable for suspected CD conditions to improve chronic inflammatory infiltrates, fibrosis. Small bowel endoscopy can help with the early detection of active disease, thus leading to early therapy before the onset of clinical symptoms of established CD. Some patients with CD have mucosal inflammatory changes not in the terminal ileum but in the proximal small bowel. Conventional ileocolonoscopy cannot detect ileal involvement proximal to the terminal ileum. Small bowel endoscopy, however, can be useful for evaluating these small bowel involvements in patients with CD. Small bowel endoscopy by endoscopic balloon dilation (EBD) enables the treatment of small bowel strictures in patients with CD. However, many practical issues still need to be addressed, such as endoscopic findings for early detection of CD, application compared with other imaging modalities, determination of the appropriate interval for endoscopic surveillance of small bowel lesions in patients with CD, and long-term prognosis after EBD.
Capsule Endoscopy ; Constriction, Pathologic ; Crohn Disease ; Diagnosis, Differential ; Early Diagnosis ; Endoscopy ; Fibrosis ; Gastrointestinal Tract ; Humans ; Ileum ; Inflammatory Bowel Diseases ; Prognosis ; Secondary Prevention

Whipple disease is a systemic chronic infection caused by Tropheryma whipplei. Although chronic diarrhea is a common gastrointestinal symptom, diagnosis is often difficult because there are no specific endoscopic findings, and the pathogen is not detectable by stool culture. We present a female patient with Whipple disease who developed chronic bloody diarrhea and growth retardation at the age of 4 years. Colonoscopy showed a mildly edematous terminal ileum and marked erythema without vascular patterns throughout the sigmoid colon and rectum. Subsequently, a primary diagnosis of ulcerative colitis was made. Histopathological analysis of the terminal ileum showed the presence of foamy macrophages filled with periodic acidSchiff-positive particles. Polymerase chain reaction using DNA from a terminal ileum biopsy sample amplified a fragment of 16S rRNA from T. whipplei. Antibiotic treatment relieved the patient’s symptoms. There was no evidence of immunodeficiency in the present case. Since Whipple disease worsens after anti-tumor necrosis factor inhibitor therapy, considering this infection in the differential diagnosis may be important in patients with inflammatory bowel disease, especially before initiation of immunotherapy.