I read with interest the article by Waters and colleagues.1 The authors state that Crohn's disease is characterized by mucosal ulcerations; I disagree. The major types of inflammatory bowel disease are ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease.2 Although the former is a nontransmural inflammatory disorder that is restricted to the colon, the latter is a transmural inflammatory disorder that can affect the entire gastrointestinal tract, and sometimes contribute to fistulas.
References
Waters AM et al. (2008) Tubulointerstitial nephritis as an extraintestinal manifestation of Crohn's disease. Nat Clin Pract Nephrol 4: 693–697
Baumgart DC and Sandborn WJ (2007) Inflammatory bowel disease: clinical aspects and established and evolving therapies. Lancet 369: 1641–1657
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Kittisupamongkol, W. Depth of inflammation in Crohn's disease. Nat Rev Nephrol 5, E2 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/ncpneph1044
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ncpneph1044