Erythrocyte sedimentation as a measure of crohn’s disease activity: Opposite trends in ileitis versus colitis

David B. Sachar, Neal E. Luppescu, Carol Bodian, Robert D. Shlien, Thomas L. Fabry, Vivek V. Gumaste

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

47 Scopus citations

Abstract

To test our hypothesis that the erythrocytic sedimentation rate (ESR) correlates well with clinical activity in inflammatory disease of the colon, but not of the small bowel, we stratified 49 Crohn's disease patients according to their anatomic involvement and then measured the correlations between ESR and clinical activity within each of these anatomical subgroups. For 18 patients with Crohn's disease involving primarily the colon, there was a trend toward a direct correlation between clinical score and ESR (p = 0.15). In the 14 patients with Crohn's disease limited to the colon, this direct correlation was even more pronounced and statistically significant (p < 0.02). By contrast, an opposite trend was observed for patients with small bowel disease. For the 26 patients with disease involving predominantly the small bowel, as well as for the 22 with disease limited to small bowel, there were statistically significant inverse correlations between clinical score and ESR (p < 0.04). This difference between the directions of the correlations for Crohn's colitis versus ileitis was statistically significant (p < 0.05). This study provides further evidence for the importance of analyzing putative indications of disease activity separately for each of the protean forms in which Crohn's disease occurs.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)643-646
Number of pages4
JournalJournal of clinical gastroenterology
Volume12
Issue number6
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 1990
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Crohn’s disease
  • Erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR)
  • Inflammatory bowel disease

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Gastroenterology

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