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

ABSTRACT

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