[Respiratory function involvement in intestinal chronic inflammatory disease: description of a case]

In the process of chronic intestinal inflammatory diseases the involvement of other organs and apparatuses is frequent. The respiratory apparatus, however, is not so frequently concerned as other organs, especially with regard to the paediatric age. The rarity of clinical evidences concerning the respiratory apparatus contrasts with the anomalies of the lung functionality tests described in literature. A fifteen year old boy is taken into consideration. He was first examined at the age of nine, when his symptomatology (slight fever and abdominal pain) was regarded as a chronic intestine inflammatory disease and it was treated with salazopyrina and cortisone. Compilations supervened later on, such as ilium arthritis, psoriasis-like dermatitis, perineal abscess. Five years after the beginning of the intestine disease the lungs were also involved and there was evidence of dyspnoea, especially when the patient was under stress. The clinical picture was confirmed by the reduction of the parameters of the respiratory functionality in the sense of an insufficiency of obstructive and restrictive kind. The pulmonary compilation was treated with disodium cromoglycate; such treatment was stopped, after the appearance of headache. After more than a year since the supervening of the lung complication the patient is being kept under periodic control to evaluate his pulmonary functionality. The indexes are constantly altered in the sense of a reduction of FEV 1, of FVC, of FEF 25-75 and of PEF, while the ventilatory and perfusional pulmonary scintigraphy has not shown relevant anomalies.