Gasbarrini G, Corazza G R
Istituto di Patologia Medica I, Università degli Studi di Bologna.
Ann Ital Med Int. 1993 Jul-Sep;8(3):185-8.
The term malabsorption is used to define the defective passage of the products of normal digestion through the intestinal mucosa. The clinical consequences and expression of this phenomenon are extremely variable. This paper discusses in detail those conditions which, due to frequency, clinical polymorphism and difficulty in diagnosis or in therapeutic control represent particularly current problems in the field of Internal Medicine. At the clinical level, physicians more and more frequently find a dissociation between malabsorption, intended as a chemical-physical phenomenon, enteropathy, intended as a morbid process characterized by evident morphological alterations of the small intestine, and malabsorption syndrome, intended as a combination of symptoms consequent to malabsorption. Diseases of the small intestine are thus more frequently accompanied by minor, transitory and extra-intestinal symptoms. This explains why many such diseases still remain underdiagnosed. Since the chief clinical problem involves diagnosis, intestinal absorption should always be appropriately assessed even if the symptoms do not at first sight appear to be connected with malabsorption.
吸收不良这一术语用于定义正常消化产物通过肠黏膜的缺陷性转运。这种现象的临床后果和表现极为多样。本文详细讨论了那些由于发病率、临床多态性以及诊断或治疗控制方面的困难，而在内科领域呈现出特别突出问题的病症。在临床层面，医生越来越频繁地发现，作为一种物理化学现象的吸收不良、作为以小肠明显形态改变为特征的病态过程的肠病以及作为吸收不良所致症状组合的吸收不良综合征之间存在脱节。小肠疾病因此更常伴有轻微、短暂和肠外症状。这就解释了为什么许多此类疾病仍未得到充分诊断。由于主要临床问题涉及诊断，即使症状乍一看似乎与吸收不良无关，也应始终对肠道吸收进行适当评估。
