대한대장항문학회

Nowadays, inflammatory bowel disease, such as ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease, is<br>increasing; however, infectious colitis, such as amebic colitis, is decreasing, so many doctors<br>are not apt to be interested in infectious colitis. In addition, recently amebic colitis has been<br>relatively rare in Korea, and the colonoscopic and the pathologic findings of amebic colitis are<br>very similar to those of other inflammatory bowel diseases. As a consequence, the diagnosis<br>is very difficult if the cyst or the trophozoite of the ameba is not found in the stool<br>examination or in the tissue pathology. The authors experienced three cases in which initial<br>diagnoses of tuberculous colitis, ulcerative colitis, and a simple ulcer were made based on<br>colonoscopic and X-ray findings. However a colonoscopic biopsy revealed a trophozoite form<br>of ameba in the tissue. Hence, a diagnosis of amebic colitis could be made with confidence.<br>Based on these results, we insist that infectious colitis should be included in the differential<br>diagnosis when making a diagnosis of inflammatory bowel disease. In addition, it is<br>extremely important to consider all kinds of infectious colitis, such as amebic colitis.<br>