Lung involvement ön inflammatory Bowel Diseases

Aim:

This study is aimed to evaluate the pulmonary involvement in in­flammatory bowel disease.

Material and methods:

17 cases (15 ulcer­ative colitis, 2 Crohn’s disease) were included. Respiratory symptoms, physical findings, pulmonary function tests, bronchial hyperreactivity, high resolution computed tomography (HRCT) of thorax, skin tests, serum IgE and eosinophil levels were evaluated. Bronchoscopy, bron­choalveolar lavage (BAL) and mucosal biopsy were performed in 15 cases.

Results:

Mean age of 10 female (58.8%) 7 male (41.2%) cases was 41,0±12,5 year and the mean duration of disease was 5,6±5,9 year. 11 cases were in remission and 6 had active disease. Mean age in active group was lower than the remission group (36,10/43,72), while there was no difference in duration (5,2/6,3). 4 cases (23%) had symptoms like cough, dyspnea, wheezing. Pulmonary functions of the study group were in normal ranges except one. 15 cases (88,2%) had abnormal HRCT findings (air trapping, emphysema, peribronchial thickening, bronchiectasis, fibrosis, groung glass opacity, bullae). 7 cases (46,6%) had alveolitis in BAL. Biopsy specimens of 2 cases (11,8%) revealed submucosal inflammatory cell infiltration. These 2 cases had positive bronchial hyperreactivity (BHR) and skin tests also. No relation between disease activity with HRCT findings, BAL values and BHR was found.

Conclusion:

Pulmonary involvement is frequently seen in IBD and may have various presentations. We did not find any correlation between the radiological and histological findings of the cases. A possible relationship may be masked as a result of the treatment and the small number of the study group. However, we sug­gest that pulmonary involvement should be evaluated in inflammatory bowel disease even in the absence of respiratory symptoms.