Mateescu BR, Bengus A, Marinescu M, Staniceanu F, Micu G, Negreanu L. First Pillcam Colon 2 capsule images of Whipple’s disease: Case report and review of the literature. World J Gastrointest Endosc 2012; 4(12): 575-578 [PMID: 23293729 DOI: 10.4253/wjge.v4.i12.575]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Lucian Negreanu, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor, Head of Internal Medicine 2 Department, Department of Internal Medicine 2-Gastroenterology, University Hospital, Splaiul Independentei 169, sector 5, Bucharest 50098, Romania. negreanu_99@yahoo.com
Article-Type of This Article
Case Report
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Bogdan Radu Mateescu, Andreea Bengus, Madalina Marinescu, Department of Gastroenterology, Colentina Hospital, Bucharest 50098, Romania
Florica Staniceanu, Gianina Micu, Department of Pathology, Colentina Hospital, Bucharest 50098, Romania
Lucian Negreanu, Department of Internal Medicine 2-Gastroenterology, University Hospital, Bucharest 50098, Romania
Author contributions: Mateescu BR, Bengus A and Negreanu L wrote the manuscript; Negreanu L and Marinescu M revised the capsule readings; Staniceanu F and Micu G realized the pathology exams; Negreanu L made the final corrections and wrote the manuscript.
Supported by ESGE-Given research grant 2010
Correspondence to: Lucian Negreanu, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor, Head of Internal Medicine 2 Department, Department of Internal Medicine 2-Gastroenterology, University Hospital, Splaiul Independentei 169, sector 5, Bucharest 50098, Romania. negreanu_99@yahoo.com
Telephone: +40-72-2546405 Fax: +40-21-3180505
Received: September 7, 2011 Revised: March 4, 2012 Accepted: October 10, 2012 Published online: December 16, 2012
Abstract
Whipple’s disease is a rare chronic systemic infection determined by the Gram-positive bacillus Tropheryma whipplei. The infection usually mainly involves the small bowel, but sometimes other organs are affected as well. Since the current standard clinical and biological tests are nonspecific, diagnosis is very difficult and relies on histopathology. Here we present the case of a 52-year-old man with chronic diarrhea and weight loss whose symptoms had been evolving for 2 years and whose diagnosis came unexpectedly after capsule examination. Diagnosis was confirmed by the histopathologic examination of endoscopic biopsy samples, and treatment with co-trimoxazole resulted in remission of symptoms. We present the first images of Whipple’s disease obtained with the Pillcam Colon 2 video capsule system.
