Giant inflammatory polyposis causing partial obstruction and pain in "healed" ulcerative colitis in an adolescent

A 16-year-old boy with chronic ulcerative colitis developed unexplained increasingly intractable abdominal pain and rectal bleeding over several months during a period when acute colitic attacks were quiescent. No abdominal mass was palpable. The cause of symptoms was subtotal colonic obstruction due to the development of massive or giant inflammatory (pseudo) polyposis, which had caused nearly complete obliteration of the lumen of the transverse colon. The radiological and histopathological findings are presented; this case confirms the conclusion drawn in a recent retrospective surgical pathology report that giant inflammatory polyposis may produce distinct symptoms, especially pain, independent of the existence of relatively quiescent underlying inflammatory bowel disease. This unusual complication of inflammatory bowel disease deserves greater clinical awareness.