Arterial Thromboembolic Complications of Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Excerpt

To the Editor—In a recent issue of Diseases of the Colon & Rectum, a case report of a patient with active ulcerative colitis who experienced an acute superior mesenteric artery occlusion was published.1 The authors stated that this has been reported only once in the literature. I eagerly scanned the references and was disappointed that my name was not in print. In the February 1992 issue of Diseases of the Colon & Rectum, I reported three arterial emboli in patients with active ulcerative colitis, including a superior mesenteric artery embolus.2 I also surveyed the members of The American Society of Colon and Rectal Surgery, yielding five additional arterial emboli. The other seven patients presented with lower extremity ischemia. Four eventually required amputation. …