Differential diagnosis of intestinal tuberculosis and Crohn's disease based on histopathologic findings and TB-PCR kit analysis

초록

Background: Even though many pathologic and molecular studies have been developed, the differential diagnosis of intestinal tuberculosis (ITB) and Crohn's disease (CD) is difficult to formulate, due to clinical and pathologic similarities. PCR for M. tuberculosis (TB-PCR) has been accepted as an ancillary test for differentiating ITB and CD. Recently, many kinds of commercial kits have been sufficiently examined. In this study, we compared the histopathologic features of ITB and CD and evaluated the diagnostic significance of TB-PCR performed on formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded specimens obtained through endoscopic biopsies.