Can mild abdominal pain be the only sign of developing Crohn’s disease? A case report

Abstract

Crohn’s disease is a condition of multifactorial unclear aetiology and increasing incidence. It can involve any fragment of the gastrointestinal tract and considerably deteriorates quality of life. Typical symptoms include: abdominal pain, chronic diarrhoea with mucus and/or blood, palpable, frequently tender resistance in the abdominal cavity, weight loss, weakness, subfebrile/febrile temperature and perianal changes. Approximately 30% of children with this disease manifest symptoms that are not associated with the gastrointestinal tract, such as growth delay, joint pain, ocular changes and skin lesions. A diversified and sometimes atypical clinical course can pose a number of diagnostic difficulties, delay diagnosis and, consequently, increase the risk of complications, which is of particular significance in patients of developmental age. The aim of this paper is to present a patient who, during the diagnosis for Crohn’s disease, presented a disproportion between very few clinical symptoms and considerable severity of inflammatory changes on endoscopy. The shrewd attitude of the first contact physician enabled a rapid diagnosis and implementation of proper treatment.

Keywords

• Crohn’s disease
• diagnosis
• symptoms
• children