Endoscopic View of Amebiasis Colitis (1 of 7)

Inflammatory bowel disease. At the beginning the macroscopic images were not specific. Crohn´s Disease or Amebiasis colitis.? This sequence displays multiple ulcers at the rectum, but at the ascending colon and others segments it seems to be a Crohn´s disease. The rectum nodules are ulcerated and look “flask shaped” consistently with amebic colitis. A 33 year-old male patient, who for work reasons had to live in Mexico for 5 months. 3 months earlier, he suffered an unspecified abdominal pain and diarrhea. He was hospitalized for a series of exams, to look at the endoscopic findings showed in this endoscopic sequence. In the majority of the cases, endoscopic findings of inflammatory bowel disease are unspecific and the diagnosis is established based on the patient’s evolution and clinical picture. The biopsies are mostly unspecified and a therapeutic trial is needed. As in this case, if colitis is caused by amebas, it should show a clinical improvement soon and a colonoscopy repeated 6 weeks later. In countries where there is a high prevalence of Entamoeba Hystolitica, as in the case of Mexico and El Salvador, it is reasonable such therapeutic trial, where infection from this parasites is suspected. Our patient had been under treatment with metronidazole 250 mg,tid, for 10 days, and ciprofloxacin 250 mg tid. After six weeks a full after six week a full colonoscopy was performed and all lesions displayed in this endoscopic sequence, disappeared.