Role of procalcitonin in infectious gastroenteritis and inflammatory bowel disease.

Background And Aim: We have evaluated procalcitonin (PCT) as a diagnostic marker for bacterial gastroenteritis (GE) and as a disease activity marker in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) patients.

Methods: This was a prospective single-center study performed over a 1-year period. Venous blood samples were drawn from hospitalized patients with acute GE and tested for PCT, C-reactive protein (CRP), erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), and total white cell count (TWC); stools from the same patients were tested for standard pathogens.

Crohn's disease runs a more aggressive course in young Asian patients.

Background: Crohn's disease is a heterogeneous inflammatory bowel disease. The impact of age at diagnosis on the clinical course of patients varies widely as reported in the Western literature. Using the Vienna Classification, we seek to determine whether young Crohn's disease patients in an Asian population followed a different clinical course than old patients.