Pulmonary involvement in inflammatory bowel disease

Pulmonary involvement in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is generally thought to be infrequent, often subclinical, and not well defined as to the pathogenesis. Reports on this topic are conflicting because patients affected with ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn's Disease (CD) are lumped together, and the size of the series is small. We have designed a study of possible respiratory alterations in patients with IBD, divided according to the presence of UC or CD, activity of the IBD, treatment, smoking habits, etc. The protocol includes clinical data, spirometry and lung diffusion capacity, blood gas analysis, 6-minute walking test, high resolution computerized tomography (CT) of the thorax and, when requested, bronchoscopy with bronchoalveolar lavage and transbronchial biopsies. In patients with respiratory alterations the examinations will be repeated after adequate treatment. The study is ongoing and the results will be reported when completed.