Campylobacter colitis: differentiation from acute inflammatory bowel disease.

We describe 10 patients with campylobacter colitis who gave a characteristic history of an acute diarrhoeal illness, rectal bleeding and colicky abdominal pain. For the majority of patients the clinical and sigmoidoscopic features differentiated campylobacter colitis from acute inflammatory bowel disease. Where doubt remained, evidence of a specific antibody response to campylobacter enabled a presumptive clinical diagnosis to be confirmed.