Chest
Volume 92, Issue 1, July 1987, Pages 18-22
Journal home page for Chest

Clinical Investigations
Airway Involvement in Ulcerative Colitis

https://doi.org/10.1378/chest.92.1.18Get rights and content

Two patients with ulcerative colitis developed progressive obstructive pulmonary disease. In one, the abnormality was a sclerosing peribronchiolitis confined to small airways, while the other demonstrated a large airway fibrotic obliterative bronchitis. A review of airway involvement in ulcerative colitis and a discussion of the possible similarity to another extraintestinal manifestation of ulcerative colitis, sclerosing cholangitis, are presented.

Section snippets

Case 1

A 24-year-old construction worker was hospitalized in March 1983 for investigation of nausea, malaise, weight loss, abdominal pain, and bloody bowel movements. Initial investigations, including a barium enema and sigmoidoscopy with biopsy, established the diagnosis of ulcerative colitis. Sulfasalazine, 8 g per day, and prednisone, 20 mg per day, was begun with control of symptoms achieved over three months. Maintenance therapy consisted of sulfasalazine, 4 g per day, and prednisone, 7.5 mg on

Discussion

Although lung disease is recognized in association with ulcerative colitis, it is unusual for it to be symptomatically apparent. In a series of 1,400 patients with inflammatory bowel disease evaluated retrospectively at one center,3 three had unexplained bronchopulmonary disease. More recently, evaluation of unselected patients with ulcerative colitis has demonstrated an asymptomatic decrease in diffusing capacity.5 Two series in the literature describe more specific conducting airway

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The authors wish to thank Dr. W. Thurlbeck and Dr. J. C. Hogg for their ideas and assistance in the preparation of this manuscript.

References (17)

There are more references available in the full text version of this article.

Cited by (101)

  • The Spectrum of Airway Involvement in Inflammatory Bowel Disease

    2022, Clinics in Chest Medicine
    Citation Excerpt :

    Interventional endoscopy with debridement, laser, argon plasma coagulation, electrocautery, stent placement, and topical injections of corticosteroids and/or mitomycin C also have been used.107,126,128 Tracheal dilation using calibrated bougies or an inflatable balloon may be complicated by airway rupture and mediastinitis.102 Despite reduction of inflammation on endoscopy and microscopy with corticosteroid therapy, permanent disabling reduction of tracheal or bronchial caliber, webs, and/or tracheomalacia may persist indefinitely (Fig. 7B).85,128

View all citing articles on Scopus

Manuscript received September 23; revision accepted December 2.

View full text