The Ewha Medical Journal
Ewha Womans University School of Medicine
Case Report

A Case of NSAIDs Induced Massive Small Bowel Bleeding in Behcet's Disease

In Sook Kang, Youn Ju Rye, Ji Eun Chang, Sung Ae Jung, Jisoo Lee, Young-Joo Cho, Kyung Eun Lee*, Jihee Lee**

Copyright ⓒ 2003. Ewha Womans University School of Medicine. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Published Online: Jun 30, 2003

Abstract

Bechet's disease(BD) is a chronic inflammatoroy condition involving several organs including gastrointestinal tract. Gastrointestinal tracts involvement in BD has been identified throughout the entire alimentary tract and commonly accompanies ulcerative lesions in the small and large bowel. It is debatable whether BD could be included among seronegative spondyloarthropathy (SPA).SPA usually occurs without overt sign of intestinal inflammation, but significant number of patients have asymptomatic intestinal inflammation, usually affecting ileum. Since most patients with SPA including BD are treated with NSAIDS. However, NSAID may play a role in aggravation or provocation of intestinal inflammation. Special attention to asymptomatic intestinal inflammation is needed, especially when NSAIDs are used for management of arthritic symptom in SpA. We experienced a case of BD which was complicated by a massive small bowel bleeding precipitated by NSAID use.

Keywords: Behcet's disease; NSAIDs; Small bowel bleeding