New Diagnostic Marker for Crohn’s Disease — Ileocecal Lipomatosis

Inflammatory bowel disease is one of the most common clinical conditions in industrialized countries. Crohn’s disease is a chronic inflammatory condition that can cause lesions from the mouth to the anus. It is a progressive disease and may cause many intestinal and extraintestinal complications. Therefore, early diagnosis and disease management are very important. The aim of this research is to explore new parameters that help facilitate the diagnosis of Crohn’s disease. Medical history, physical examination, and histological and microbial examinations are accepted for diagnosis, but studies on anatomical changes are quite inadequate. There are reports that increased ileocecal lipomatosis diameter may be associated with inflammation. But, the relationship between the diameter of ileocecal lipomatosis and Chron’s disease has never been discussed before. Patients diagnosed with Crohn’s disease (n=102) and patients not diagnosed with Crohn’s disease (n=77) were included in this study. The mean diameter of ileocecal lipomatosis between the two groups was compared by evaluating CT images. The values were significantly higher in the Crohn’s disease positive group than in the Crohn’s disease negative group (p=0.001). The increase in diameter in ileocecal lipomatosis may be a useful marker for the diagnosis of Crohn’s disease. Further research is recommended to understand the relationship between Crohn’s disease and ileocecal lipomatosis.