How would you manage a patient with Crohn's disease on a biologic and presents with non-bloody diarrhea, normal-appearing mucosa on sigmoidoscopy but severe colitis on biopsy with a positive CMV stain?

Would you send a CMV DNA PCR in blood, and if you elect to treat with anti-CMV medication, how long would you treat and what parameters would you use, besides clinical improvement, to decide the duration of therapy or assess treatment failure?

Answer from: at Community Practice

A few key pieces of information help distinguish CMV colitis from other competing diagnoses in this frequently encountered conundrum. An experienced pathologist will usually be able to tell you: If the CMV immunohistochemistry stain has good controls and whether it is floridly positive or scant. ...

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at Stanford Health Care
Agree completely with Dr. @Pande. IHC for CMV in i...

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How would you manage a patient with Crohn's disease on a biologic and presents with non-bloody diarrhea, normal-appearing mucosa on sigmoidoscopy but severe colitis on biopsy with a positive CMV stain?

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