GASTROINTESTINAL MANIFESTATIONS IN SYSTEMIC LUPUS ERYTHEMATOSUS

Abstract

Gastrointestinal manifestations were studied in 83 cases with systemic lupus erythematosus. Gastrointestinal symptoms were found in 50 cases (60.2%) in the course of the disease. Abdominal pain was complained by the most mumber of cases, followed by various abdominal discomforts. In fact 23 out of 54 examined cases revealed abnormal findings in the gastrointestinal tract. But, gastric ulcers and duodenal ulcers had not particular features endoscopically. There was no evidence that these ulcers were induced by cortico-steroid. Angitis was not seen in biopsy specimens. The author experienced 2 cases having perforations of small intestine and a case having multiple colonic ulcers. One of the cases showed severe angitis in the resected intestine. Colonic ulcers resembled closely to that of Behcet disease. The author found hypotonic findings of esophagus and of small intestine radiologically. There were some cases which showed severe angitis or severe gastrointestinal lesions. But many of the cases showed only minor gastrointestinal symptoms or minor gastrointestinal lesions. The author concluted that the cause of the minor symptoms were mainly functional disorders such as hypotonic tendency of gastrointestinal tract.