Papers of the Week

Colitis describes inflammation in the colon and is classified into defined diseases: Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), Microscopic colitis, Ischemic colitis and Infectious colitis. The clinical significance of non-specific colitis is unclear as there are limited analysis which report the issue. Notteghem et al. (1993) showed that of 104 patients with non-specific colitis, 52.3% had another episode of symptoms within 3 years. Of these patients 54% were diagnosed with ulcerative colitis, 33% with Crohn's disease, and 13% remained unclassified, suggesting that non-specific colitis could be undiagnosed IBD. The objective of this analysis is to determine the clinical course of non-specific colitis through colonoscopy and histologic findings.