Pathology - Need help understanding confusing diagnosis

Author

Need help understanding confusing diagnosis

jplasater@NOSPAMjuno.com

2004-12-18, 7:12 pm

My wife has been to see a gastroenterologist for stomach pain. He did
a colonoscopy and found lots of plaque in both intestines. He took
samples and sent them to a lab. He said that the results were
uncertain and he sent the tissue to another pathologist. Here again
the results were uncertain. The doctor concluded that the inflamation
she had must be either a resolving bacterial infection of some type of
IBD. I guess I do not understand the difficulty in getting a clear
diagnosis. Can anyone shed any light on this for us? Many thanks
for any help/

SineCurve

2004-12-27, 11:09 am

The diagnosis of inflammatory bowel disease is a very painstaking
one. It is not made on pathological basis alone. I requires the
collaboration of the clinician and the pathologist. The pathological
findings have to be collated and matched with the clinical findings,
and this often requires that the patient be followed up for some time.
Without the clinical findings(symptoms, endoscopy results, etc.), all
the pathologist can do is give a descriptive diagnosis-descibe what
he/she sees- and let the clinician decide on the diagnosis. Of course,
this is assuming that the biopsy was adequately performed. If the
pathologist can see only shreds of surface epithelium, or fragments of
exudate, obviously not much can be said.