INDETERMINATE COLITIS

Indeterminate colitis combines features of chronic ulcerative colitis and Crohn's colitis and contemplates a dilemma for the patient and sur geon contemplating ileal pouch anal anastomosis. Some series have repo rted a high incidence of failure of pouch procedures in patients with indeterminate colitis. A series reported by the authors in 1989 report ed a failure rate on approximately 9 % with indeterminate colitis. In updating this series with additional patients operated on since that t ime, the incidence in our series approaches 20 %. We feel that an 80 % success rate, however, justifies performing the ileal pouch anal proc edure in carefully selected patients with indeterminate colitis, knowi ng that the failure rate may be somewhat higher than in patients with type ordainer chronic ulcerative colitis.