Approach to the Patient with Axial Spondyloarthritis and Suspected Inflammatory Bowel Disease

To adequately and efficiently evaluate patients with gastrointestinal symptoms in the context of axial spondyloarthritis can be difficult, considering that many of these patients suffer from chronic pain, present high inflammatory parameters, and use drugs with possible gastrointestinal adverse effects. In addition, the immunosuppressive treatments that these patients can receive make it necessary to always consider infections within the differential diagnoses of inflammatory bowel disease. In this article, we propose a practical approach to patients diagnosed with axial spondyloarthritis and suspected inflammatory bowel disease.