Gastrointestinal Flashcards
What is the most common intraluminal obstruction?
Colorectal cancer
What can cause intraluminal obstruction?
- Tumour
- Diaphragm disease
- Meconium ileum
- Gallstone ileus
What can cause intramural obstruction?
- Crohn’s
- Diverticulitis
- Tumours
- Hirschsprung’s disease
How can Crohn’s cause intramural obstruction?
- Fibrosis
- Inflammation
- Granulomas
- Cobble stone mucosa
How do diverticula form?
Weaknesses in bowel wall where vessels come in
What can occur if diverticula fill with faeces?
Faecal peritonitis
What causes extraluminal obstruction?
- Adhesions
- Volvulus
- Tumour
How does volvulus occur?
Sigmoid colon twists on itself
What is the most common tumour to cause extraluminal obstruction/
Ovarian cancer
What is an intestinal obstruction?
Blockage to lumen of gut
What is a volvus?
A rotation of a segment of bowel
What is intesussuption?
Telescoping one hollow structure into its distal hollow structure
What is atresia?
Absence of opening or failure of development of hollow structure
How can obstruction conditions be classified?
- Site
- Extent of luminal obstruction
- Mechanism
- Pathology
What are the symptoms of bowel obstruction?
- Anorexia
- Nausea
- Distension
- Abdominal pain
- Constipation
What is the most common type of intestinal obstruction?
Small bowel obstruction (SBO)
Give 4 causes of SBO
- Adhesions (surgery)
- Hernia
- Crohns
- Appendicitis
What is the acute presentation of large bowel obstruction (LBO)?
- Abdominal distention
- Abdominal discomfort
- Pain
- Vomiting
Give 4 causes of LBO
- Malignancy
- Volvulus
- Imperforate anus
- Hirschsprung disease
What increases incidence of adhesive obstruction?
- Pelvic surgery
- Gynaecology surgery
- Colorectal surgery
What is a hernia?
Abnormal protrusion of viscus through normal or abnormal defects of body cavity
What is a complication of untreated hernia?
Strangulation
What is the presentation of hernia?
- Lumps
2. Pain
Where do volvulus occur?
Part of the bowel with mesentery
What causes volvulus?
- Caecal rotation
- Congenital band
- Adhesional band
What is the mechanism of intesussuption?
Imbalance in longitudinal forces along intestinal wall
What are the symptoms of intesussuption?
- Colicky pain
- Vomiting
- Constipation
- Abdominal distention
What is the pathophysiology of familial adenomatous polyposis?
- Mutation in gene causes misfiled protein
- Protein won’t bind to beta catenin so levels go up
- Binds to DNA to up regulate genes that cause epithelial proliferation
- Adenoma etc. form
What is the Rx for familial adenomatous polyposis?
Remove colon to prevent cancer
What is missing in hereditary nonpolyposis colorectal cancer (HNPCC)?
Gene that encodes DNA repair proteins
What are the implications for therapy in HNPCC?
- Tolerance of 5-FU
- Don’t recognise DNA damage
- Apoptosis not activated
Where is most colorectal cancer?
Lower end (38%); rectum (28%)
How can lower end colorectal cancer be identified?
Digital rectal exam
Where is the first place GI tumours metastasise to?
Liver
What is resected during endoscopy to prevent colorectal adenocarcinoma?
Adenoma
What is the pathophysiology for gastric ulcers?
- Mucosal ischaemia means cells are unable to produce mucin
- Cells are not protected from stomach acid
- Stomach acid kills cells and get micro-ulcer
- Acid enters hold and damages more cells to get bigger ulcer
What are the signs of gastric ulcers?
- Tachycardia
- Low BP
- High RR
- Bleeding (see on scans)
What is the Rx for gastric ulcers?
- Fluids/blood
- Reversal mucosal ischaemia
- H2 blocker/PPI inhibitor - reduce acid
What are the risks for increased stomach acid?
- Stress
- Helicobacter
- Aspirin
- Bile reflux
- Alcohol
How does helicobacter cause ulceration?
Produce chemicals which attract inflammatory cells which enter gastric epithelium to damage cells and cause ulceration
Why does helicobacter increase risk of gastric cancer?
Changes gastric epithelium into intestinal metaplasia
What are the results of ulceration?
- Bleeding
- Haemorrhage (vomit blood)
- Peritonitis
- Pancreatitis
How does malabsorption manifest?
- Weight loss with normal calories
- Pale floating faeces
- Anaemia
What are the causes of malabsorption?
- Insufficient intake
- Defective intraluminal digestion
- Insufficient absorptive areas
- Lack of digestive enzymes
- Defective epithelial transport
- Lymphatic obstruction
What causes defective intraluminal digestion?
- Pancreatic insufficiency
- Defective bile secretion
- Bacterial overgrowth
Give an example of gluten sensitive enteropathy
Coeliac disease
What causes gluten sensitive enteropathy?
Villous atrophy and hyper plastic crypts
Describe gluten sensitive enteropathy gut wall
Flat epithelium and marked increase in epithelial lymphocytes
What is the pathophysiology of coeliac disease?
- Gliadin peptide from gluten is absorbed and presented to antigen presenting cell
- Produces toxic T cells –> lymphocytes
- Lymphocytes release inflammatory mediators when exposed to gluten
What happens if Crohn’s disease is uncontrolled?
Get cobblestone mucosa which reduces SA
What are the complications of small intestinal resection?
- Malabsorption
2. Fatty liver
When might a small intestinal resection or bypass be done?
- Morbid obesity
- Crohn’s disease
- Infarcted small bowel
What can cause lack of digestive enzymes?
- Disaccharidase deficiency
2. Bacterial overgrowth
What can cause lymphatic obstruction?
- Lymphoma
2. Tuberculosis
What can cause intestinal inflammation?
- Diverticulitis
- Ischaemic colitis
- Infective colitis
What can cause chronic idiopathic inflammatory bowel disease (CIIBD)?
- Crohn’s disease
2. Ulcerative colitis
What is the histology of Crohn’s?
- Patchy inflammation from mouth to anus
- Transmural
- White ulcers with patchy distribution
- Fibrosis and cobblestone mucosa
- Granulomas
What are 6 complications of Crohn’s?
- Malabsorption
- Chronic fibrosis
- Perforation
- Fistula formation
- Anal fissure
- Colorectal cancer
What are the signs of colon fistula?
Watery diarrhoea and malabsorption
What can confirm Crohn’s diagnosis?
Skin tags full of granulomas
What is the pathology of ulcerative colitis?
- Inflammation is all mucosal
- Starts in rectum and is continuous
- Stops before ilium
- Red inflamed mucosa
What are 5 complications of ulcerative colitis?
- Fatty change to liver
- Blood loss from colon
- Arthritis
- Iritis
- Erythema nodosum
What gene is associated with colitis?
HLA B27
What is coeliac disease?
Chronic autoimmune enteropathy triggered by ingested gluten in genetically susceptible individuals
What is the prevalence of coeliac disease in the UK?
1%
What is the commonest age for presentation of coeliac disease?
4th to 6th decade
What environmental factors can cause coeliac disease?
- Viral infections
- Dysbiosis
- Gluten
What individual factors cause coeliac disease?
- Genetic predisposition
- Association with HLA DQ2 (95%) or DQ8
- Tissue transglutanimase