Crohn's disease is one of the two types of inflammatory bowel disease. It
causes diarrhea but usually no blood in stool.
It coudl affected any part of the whole GI tract, particularly distal ileus.
Some blood work could help the diagnosis and differental diagnosis but
definite diagnosis would depend on colonoscopy with pathological exam. It
seems that your cousin has already been diagnosed. The next step would be
how to treat it.
It is not curable but treatable. Currently there are six types of treatment
that could be used to treat Crohn's diasease: first line treatment would be
oral 5-aminosalicylates, such as sulfasalazine and mesalamine. I believe
they are available in China and not very expensive. If it could not control
the symptoms or it flares up, antibiotics such as ciprofloxacin or
metronidazole or even glucocorticoids prednisone will be added. Non-systemic
glucocorticoids such as budesonide sometimes also be used. If patient has
moderate to severe disease or frequent flare up on the above treatment,
immunomodulators (azathioprine, 6-mercaptopurine, or methotrexate) and new
biologic therapies (infliximab or adalimumab) can be prescribed. Surgery is
also an option but more common used in another type of inflammatory bowel
disease, ulcerative colitis.
Therepy could be step down or step up, from basic medications to higher
level or from higher level medicaions to oral medications, depending on the
severity of the disease, the location of the disease and the goal of therapy
, and sometimes doctor's preference.
The major issue for this disease is the risk for colon cancer. After being
diagnosed for about 8-10 years, colonoscopy screening should be initiated.
