Familial Crohn's disease with systemic lupus erythematosus

We describe a young Japanese woman who was diagnosed with Crohn's disease a ffecting the ileum, transverse colon, and rectum, as confirmed by barium st udies, colonoscopy, and histopathological examination. Her father and siste r also had Crohn's disease. After a 4-yr course of sulfasalazine and elemen tal diet therapy, she was readmitted for perianal abscess associated with t he presence of pancytopenia, microhematuria with granular cast, hypocomplem entemia, and high titers of autoimmune antibodies (anti-ANA and anti-dsDNA antibodies). Based on these features, a diagnosis of systemic lupus erythem atosus (SLE) was made. Despite the rarity of such combination (Crohn's dise ase with SLE), patients with Crohn's disease who develop such clinical find ings might need evaluation for SLE. (C) 1998 by Am. Cell. of Gastroenterolo gy.