[Thrombocytopenia, arthritis and enteropathy: a casual association or the expression of a unique entity?]

The arthropathy of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a noninfectious arthritis occurring before or during the course of either regional enteritis or ulcerative colitis. Two patterns of joint disease are described: a chronic asymmetric oligoarthritis affecting peripheral joints, and a spondylo-sacroiliitis similar to the idiopathic type. Different criteria for diagnosis and classification (ACR and EULAR) of arthropathies associated with IBD are used and this is not helpful in order to a correct nosography. An unusual case of ulcerative colitis with thrombocytopenia and oligoarticular arthritis at onset, 4 and 2 years before the assessment of IBD, is reported. Moreover the arthritis had characteristics much more similar to a juvenile chronic arthritis (JCA) with pauciarticular onset of type I (FR-; ANA+) than to an enteropathic arthropathy.