It is very important to differentiate between ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease, as the symptoms in both cases are almost similar. Recently, blood tests have found to be effective in identifying the two diseases. It is done to find out the antibodies to various proteins that are found only in the blood of patients suffering from the disease. Differentiating between the two is useful in better diagnosis and avoids the risk of complications to a great extent. The blood tests available to identify the disease are namely pANCA, ASCA, Ompc and CBir1 Flagelin. This is available only in one laboratory, Prometheus Laboratories, Inc. It is always necessary to make sure what the disease is and then to take the remedy. These blood tests have found to be useful in determining the exact disease and take medication or other decisions accordingly.
So let us understand the difference between the ulcerative colitis and the Crohn's disease. Ulcerative colitis affects only the colon and causes bloody diarrhea, weight loss, bloody stool, skin rashes and in some severe cases cause even liver disorder. This can be cured by complete removal of the colon. However, the Crohn's disease may affect the entire gastrointestinal tract and cannot be cured by removable of the colon.
At times, there are chances that the patients may sometimes develop colitis, however here it affects the colon in a non-continuous manner. Therefore, it is necessary to identify whether the patient is suffering from colitis or the Crohn's disease because the medication and surgical decision for both the disease is entirely different. Traditional methods like colonoscopy have failed to identify colitis from this disease and the development of the blood tests to determine abnormal antibody specific to a particular disease have found to be truly useful.
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