Acute peritonitis complicating Crohn's disease: epidemiologic and physiopathological characteristics

An uncommon event in the natural course of Crohn's disease is the spontaneous perforation. It's the most serious intestinal complication. To report the incidence of this complication and to discuss the mechanism of the perforation. We report, retrospectively, 4 cases [3 men and one woman; median age: 30 years] of peritonitis complicating Crohn's disease and study their clinical characteristics intra operatively findings and course evolution. Steroid therapy was administrated to all patients before the perforation. The perforation sites are on the ileum in three cases and on the jejunum in one case. The treatment consists in a resection of the perforated intestine with stoma in all cases. Perforation in Crohn's disease is a rare event. The exact mechanism of the perforation is still unknown and many hypotheses are presented

Gastric malt lymphoma. A clinico-pathological study of 65 cases. Relationship to Helicobacter pylori

We report 65 cases of MALT gastric lymphomas. HP was looked for with Giemsa and Whartin Starry stains. Immunohistochemistry was done with PAP method. Anti-HP treatment was used in 9 cases. 38 were of low grade of malignancy, 23 were high grade, 4 were high grade with a low grads component. The mean age was 51.5 years, the sex ratio 1.5. Epigastric pain was the most frequent feature [87.7 percent of cases]. Endoscopically, low grade lymphomas presented as unique or multiple ulcerations [55.3 percent of cases] with antral localization [52.6 percent of cases]. 60 percent of our patients were stage IE, of which 61 percent had low grade lymphoma, 18 percent were at stage 112E, 10 percent at stage III and 10 percent at stage IV. From 23 operated patients, 29 percent had early lymphoma which was low grads malignant in 71.5 percent of cases, and 71 percent had lymphomas which were wi-dely spread beyond the submucosa. HP was found in 63 percent of cases. Histologic regression of two early lymphomas of low grade malignancy was achieved after HP eradication