TY - JOUR T1 - Digest JF - Gut JO - Gut SP - 317 LP - 317 VL - 53 IS - 3 AU - Robin Spiller Y1 - 2004/03/01 UR - http://gut.bmj.com/content/53/3/317.2.abstract N2 - When first described, microscopic colitis was considered something of a rarity but as the article on page 346 shows it is no longer a rarity with an incidence which now equals that of Crohn’s disease. One in ten of those referred for colonoscopy in Sweden for non-bloody diarrhoea and one in five of those who are aged more than 70 are now diagnosed with microscopic colitis. The reported annual incidence in Sweden from 1993–1998, 4.4 cases/100 000 of the population is substantially higher than that reported in the same area from 1984–1993 when it was 1.8/100 000 population. Since many would have been diagnosed as diarrhoea-predominant IBS had they not been colonoscoped and biopsied, this increase is likely to be due to an increased ascertainment, coinciding as it did with a substantial increase in the colonoscopy rate for all indications. Furthermore, a reassessment of biopsies previously reported as “non-specific colitis” lead … ER -