[ XXXX in young adults.]

@entity1 @entity65 @entity548 @entity63
Introduction: @entity63 is most often considered a disease of the elderly with associated @entity65 . Young @entity1 with this disease have been diagnosed at our hospital and therefore the authors decided to investigate the disease's prevalence, its anatomical location, prognosis and risk factors in the young population. Material and methods: A retrospective search of all cases diagnosed as @entity63 from 01.01. 1983 to 31.12. 1995 was performed. One author (ThornThorn) reviewed all pathological material. Strong inclusion criteria were proposed and of the 50 cases discovered, only 26 fulfilled these strict criteria, 16 @entity1 and 10 @entity1 . Five were under the age of 40 (19%), three of them @entity1 . Results: @entity63 was most common in the left colon. Incidence has increased in the last years, paralelling the increase in colonoscopies performed. All @entity1 under 40 years of age had completely reversible @entity63 , however eight of 21 @entity1 over the age of 60 required surgical intervention. Five @entity1 died and were all older than 75 years. The percentage of young @entity1 is noteworthy. Conclusion: Pathophysiology of @entity63 in young @entity1 is in most cases unknown. Possible contributing factors in our study were smoking, dehydration, NSAID (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs) use, constipation and contraceptive use. The study supports the importance of early endoscopy and biopsies for diagnosis in @entity1 presenting acutely with symptoms of @entity548 .
