Masafumi SHIRAHAMA¹, Masako UCHIDA¹, Yuichi MIYAMOTO¹, Hiromi ISHIBASHI²

¹Department of Internal Medicine, Saga Prefectural Hospital, ²First Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Kyushu University

キーワード : Colitis, Doppler, <I>Escherichia coli</I> O157, Ultrasonography

A 27-year-old woman was admitted with complaints of abdominal cramps and grossly bloody diarrhea. A stool test showed the presence of Escherichia coli serotype O157: H7. Gray-scale ultrasonography revealed marked thickening of the right-sided colon and blurred stratification of the diseased bowel wall. Color Doppler ultrasonography demonstrated no visible color Doppler flow in the colonic wall. Thickness of the affected bowel wall decreased, wall stratification was restored, and color Doppler flow in the wall became demonstrable as the symptoms improved. This paper describes the efficacy of gray-scale and color Doppler ultrasonography in the assessment of the colitis induced by Escherichia coli serotype O157: H7 infection.