After analyzing your symptoms and clinical history, your doctor will order a series of tests to confirm the diagnosis and rule out other conditions that could contribute to your discomfort.
The most common tests include:
- Blood and stool test, to detect if you have anemia, infection by parasites, viruses, or bacteria, as well as hidden blood.
- Colonoscopy to view the entire colon and take tissue samples to confirm or rule out the diagnosis.
- CT scan to check the entire intestine and the tissues outside of it.
- MRI to assess the presence of a fistula around the anal area or intestine.
- Capsule endoscopy to take pictures of the small intestine for signs related to Crohn’s disease.
- Endoscopy to observe the digestive tract and take a tissue biopsy to analyze in the laboratory.
- Assisted enteroscopy to explore the small intestine more deeply, mainly if the capsule endoscopy shows abnormalities and a specific diagnosis cannot be established.
Although Crohn’s disease is incurable, treatment can improve symptoms, control inflammation, and correct nutritional deficiencies, so your doctor will likely prescribe anti-inflammatories, antibiotics, and nutritional supplements.
In more extreme cases, intestinal resection surgery or proctocolectomy will have to be performed.
In ABC Medical Center’s Internal Medicine Department, we offer health care services with the highest quality and safety, from the prevention, diagnosis, timely treatment, and monitoring of infectious, respiratory, endocrinological, dermatological, rheumatic, nephrological, gastrointestinal, and hematological pathologies of both chronic-degenerative diseases and acute conditions, through a comprehensive and multidisciplinary model.
