Inflammatory Bowel Disease Presenting with Only Joint Involvement

Abstract

Inflammatory bowel disease is an idiopathic and chronic intestinal inflammation. The major symptoms of the disease are diarrhea, rectal bleeding, tenesmus, passage of mucus, and crampy abdominal pain. The severity of the symptoms correlates with the extent of the disease. Peripheral arthritis is one of the extraintestinal manifestations of inflammatory bowel disease and is detected in about 15-20% of patients. It is usually asymmetric, polyarticular, and affects migratory large joints. In this report we describe a case of inflammatory bowel disease associated with symmetric, polyarticular, small-joint involvement. The patient was an 18-year-old male who had not been diagnosed for five months because of the absence of gastrointestinal symptoms. Colonoscopic biopsy results were compatible with inflammatory bowel disease.