Inflammatory bowel disease1. Describe the pathophysiology of the disease you have chosen – What is the disease spectrum/pathology of the disease? Is the disease characterized by inflammation, etc.? Is it an infectious and/or chronic disease? If so, what is the agent, its reservoir, mode of transmission, etc. Inflammatory bowel disease is a chronic disease characterized by inflammation in the gastrointestinal tract (Wolf, CDC, Mayo clinic, Health Direct, NHS choices). Patients suffering from inflammatory bowel disease usually suffer from severe chronic stomach pain, diarrhea, which may contain blood, loss of appetite, joint pain, skin problems, fever, fatigue, etc. Symptoms can appear for periods of time and can appear in different severity depending on the case (Wolf). Two main categories of inflammatory bowel disease are Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis. Ulcerative colitis typically appears in the lining of the large intestine. It causes swelling and ulcers to form in the affected regions. In extreme cases, this can cause a whole to appear in the tracks of the large intestine. In these cases, immediate emergency surgery is required. Less than half of patients with ulcerative colitis typically require surgery at some point in their lives (CDC). Unlike ulcerative colitis, Crohn's disease is not limited to one region of the gastrointestinal tract, although it has been shown to be more dominant in the gastrointestinal tract. small intestine. Crohn's disease causes swelling and thickening of scar tissue in the affected regions. Crohn's disease also typically appears in areas where some regions are affected by the disease and other regions are not. Like ulcerative colitis, in extreme cases Crohn's disease can cause holes to appear in the......middle of paper......ntroduction.aspx>Health direct Australia. Crohn's Disease and Colitis, 2013. Web. May 5, 2014. Ghosh, Subrata and Almadi, Majid. “Inflammatory bowel disease: a global disease”. Saudi Journal of Gastroenterology: Official Journal of the Saudi Association of Gastroenterology (2013). Network. May 5, 2014Mayo Clinic. Disease and Conditions Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), 2012. Web. May 5, 2014Rubin, Deborah; Shaker, Anisa; and Levin, Marc. “Chronic intestinal inflammation: inflammatory bowel disease and cancer associated with colitis”. Frontiers in Immunology (2012). Network. May 5 2014.