What is Inflammatory Bowel Disease?

Inflammatory bowel disease is not a single disease. The term describes, in a general way, any condition or disease that results in inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract. Strictly speaking, this definition would include infections of the intestine, for example, infection caused by salmonella bacteria. However, the term inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is usually reserved for two similar disorders, Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis. Specific causes for these disorders are not yet entirely known.

 

 

Crohn's disease probably dates back to the early 19th century, based upon descriptions of cases of similar ailments in the medical literature of that era. In 1932, Drs. Crohn, Ginzburg, and. Oppenheimer at the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York first described, the condition as a specific disease entity. The form of the disease they originally described focused on inflammation of the ileum, the last part of the small intestine. They called the condition "regional ileitis," with "ileitis" indicating inflammation of the ileum. Several years after Dr. Crohn and colleagues described the condition, it was given the name "Crohn's disease." In the early 1950s, it was recognized that Crohn's disease did not necessarily affect just the ileum, but that other parts of the gastrointestinal tract, such as the colon or large intestine, could be affected.

 

 

 

Like Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis has probably been with us for some time before it was fully described in the late 19tn century. Ulcerative colitis is sometimes referred to as "ulcerative proctitis," "ulcerative proctosigmoiditis," and "ulcerative pancolitis." These names relate primarily to the extent of the inflammation of the colon rather than to any fundamental differences in the presumed causes of ulcerative colitis. In the first half of the 20th century, the treatment of ulcerative colitis was surgical, and many patients ended up dying of complications of the disease or the surgery. Since the 1940s, there has been a consistent improvement in the surgical and medical management of ulcerative colitis, and death due to complications of the disease or its treatment is now exceedingly rare.

 

In ulcerative colitis, the inflammation is limited to the large intestine, which includes the rectum. The rest of the gastrointestinal tract is not involved.

 

 

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) are often confused since their names are so alike. IBS is a poorly understood condition of the gastrointestinal tract. Although IBS is characterized by chronic abdominal discomfort or pain and an alteration in the normal bowel habit, it is quite a different condition from Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis (IBD).

 

In IBS, it is thought that the problems arise from a change in the way the bowel functions or the way in which the brain senses the bowel functioning. In IBS, there has been no clear or consistent evidence that inflammation plays a role in causing the symptoms in humans. This is different from IBD, where inflammation is the main defining characteristic of the disease, and where treatment against inflammation will help the disease and its symptoms. In IBS, treatment is usually aimed at modifying the motility of the gastrointestinal tract or the transmission of the pain impulses from the intestine to the brain.