Autoimmune reactivity in inflammatory bowel disease.

Inflammatory bowel disease remains a poorly understood chronic inflammatory condition of the bowel. No etiologic agents, or agreed upon pathogenesis is currently known. Recent findings that perinuclear antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibodies (P-ANCA) are present in the vast majority of patients with this disease have proven to be of use in epidemiologic studies. Its clinical use is currently being explored by several investigators.