During the period from 1975 to 1986, fourteen patients with proven ambebic colitis were studied clinically. These were 13 males and one female with the mean age of 55.6 years. The youngest one was a victim of cerebral palsy. The major complaints on admission were blood tingled mucoid stools (100%) and abdominal pain (35.7%). The serum IHA titers were greater than 512 folds dilution in 5 patients (35.7%). Fibercolonoscopic biopsy revealed amebic trophozoites in 56%. The rectosigmoid colon was involved in most cases, left side colon and total colon involvement followed by decreasing frequency.
Colonoscopic features in our series were characterized into four groups: 1) edematous changes 2) hemorrhagic changes 3) ulcerative changes 4) polypoid nodular changes. The most common type was ulcerative (42.9%), followed by ulcerative-hemorrhagic combined type (28.6%). The prognosis of amehic colitis is good if the patients received oral metronidazole treatment in the early phase. But, four patients died of acute fulminant colitis due to profound shock and electrolyte imbalance.
'/%3e%3cuse xlink:href='%23a' transform='rotate(60)'/%3e%3ccircle r='17' fill='%23000095'/%3e%3ccircle r='15' fill='%23fff'/%3e%3c/svg%3e)
