Inflammatory bowel disease and coronary artery disease.

Chronic inflammation with the presence of excess serum acute-phase proteins, cytokines and cell adhesion molecules is increasingly being implicated in atherosclerosis. The association between inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and coronary artery disease (CAD) is unstudied. This is a preliminary, thesis-generating cross-sectional study aimed at evaluating the presence of traditional atherosclerotic risk factors in patients with IBD and CAD compared with the control population.

Extensive gastrointestinal tract and thyroid involvement with Wegeners granulomatosis.

Wegeners granulomatosis (WG) is a pauci-immune systemic vasculitis involving small to medium sized blood vessels of the respiratory tract and renal vasculature. We report a 34-year-old lady with extensive gastrointestinal tract, pancreas and thyroid involvement. Literature review revealed only two prior reports of esophageal involvement, two reports of pancreatic involvement and few cases of thyroid involvement.