Table 1.
Differential diseases in this case
| Differential diseases | Reasons for exclusion |
|---|---|
| Infectious enteritis | |
| Bacterial enteritis | Stool culture and endoscopic biopsy tissue culture were negative |
| Cytomegalovirus enteritis | Serologically, the CMV antigen C7-HRP was negative. No cytoplasmic inclusion bodies were found in tissue samples by biopsy, and immunohistochemical staining using anti-CMV monoclonal antibody was negative for CMV antibody |
| Intestinal tuberculosis | We did not measure tuberculosis-specific IFN-γ in the blood, but the patient had no history of pulmonary tuberculosis, and there were no findings suggestive of obsolete pulmonary tuberculosis on chest CT scan. Furthermore, there were no endoscopic findings such as ring ulcers or intestinal stenosis suggestive of intestinal tuberculosis, and biopsy specimens did not point out any pyogenic granulomas |
| Inflammatory bowel disease | |
| Crohn’s disease | The patient had no history of IBD and no endoscopic findings, including cobblestone appearance and intestinal stenosis, characteristic of Crohn's disease. In addition, there were no extraintestinal complications such as anorectal lesions, skin lesions, or arthritis, and biopsy showed no granuloma species |
| Behcet’s disease | The patient did not have any oral aphthae, vulvar ulcers, or skin lesions during hospitalization or after discharge |
| Drug-induced enteritis | |
| NSAIDs-induced small bowel inflammation | The patient had not used any NSAIDs during hospitalization |
| Collagenous colitis and sprue | The patient was treated in the ICU on a ventilator for severe pneumonia caused by COVID-19. Of course, esomeprazole was given to prevent stress gastric ulcer. However, disease-specific collagen bands could not be indicated in the biopsy specimen in this case |
| Vasculitis | |
| Lupus enteritis | ANCA and ANA measurements were not performed in this case. However, even though the serum markers for each disease were positive, they were systemic diseases, and none of the symptoms or lesions could be shown to satisfy the other diagnostic criteria |
| ANCA-associated vasculitis | |
| The others | |
| Amyloidosis | There was no amyloid deposition suggestive of amyloidosis |
| Eosinophilic enteritis | There was and no eosinophilic infiltration suggestive of eosinophilic enteritis |