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Natural History of Pediatric Indeterminate Colitis

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Pediatric Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Abstract

Indeterminate colitis (IC), as a classification of inflammatory bowel disease, was introduced by Kent in 1970 [1] and was intended to classify colectomy specimens that had histology findings suggestive of Crohn’s disease (CD), despite a patient’s clinical history of ulcerative colitis (UC). The 2014 Porto Criteria established new terminology, inflammatory bowel disease unclassified (IBD-U), to reduce confusion among providers, researchers, and patients [2]. Contemporarily, IBD-U is used broadly for patients whose clinical, radiological, endoscopic, and histological findings provide a muddled picture. In this chapter, we review the clinical and histological criteria needed to establish the diagnosis of inflammatory bowel disease unclassified (IBD-U), describe the factors that lead to the diagnosis of IBD-U, investigate occurrence of reclassification, and review the available literature about the natural history of this classification.

Melissa A. Fernandes and Sofia Verstraete were supported in part by NIH Grant T32 DK007762.

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Abbreviations

CD:

Crohn’s disease

IBD:

Inflammatory bowel disease

IBD-U:

Inflammatory bowel disease unclassified

IC:

Indeterminate colitis

UC:

Ulcerative colitis

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Correspondence to Melvin B. Heyman MD .

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Fernandes, M.A., Verstraete, S., Heyman, M.B. (2017). Natural History of Pediatric Indeterminate Colitis. In: Mamula, P., Grossman, A., Baldassano, R., Kelsen, J., Markowitz, J. (eds) Pediatric Inflammatory Bowel Disease. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49215-5_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49215-5_9

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