Question 112

Question:

A 19-year-old college student has chronic bouts of abdominal pain and diarrhea. On many occasions, she has seen blood in her stool. Her sister has the same condition. Which of the following is a feature of the most likely diagnosis in this case?

Correct Answer: B.  Crypt abscesses and ulcers

This patient has symptoms of inflammatory bowel disease. The presence of bloody stools and a positive family history should make you lean toward ulcerative colitis over Crohn’s.
Crohn’s disease is marked by transmural involvement, skip lesions, noncaseating granulomas, and cobblestone mucosa.
UC is marked by mucosal inflammation, continuous involvement usually in the descending colon and rectum, crypt abscesses and ulcers and a friable mucosa with pseudopolyp formation.