Proteus Species Are Seen More Frequently in Patients with Crohn Disease

Previous research suggests that bacteria play a role in the development of Crohn disease (CD). To further investigate this theory, investigators in Hong Kong collected stool samples from 54 CD patients and 54 healthy controls and 114 colonic biopsy samples (45 noninflamed CD, 29 inflamed CD, 40 controls) from colonoscopy. The prevalence of Proteus species in stool was higher in patients with CD than controls (19% vs. 6%). In addition, Proteus species abundance was significantly higher in CD tissue (both inflamed and noninflamed) compared with control tissue. Among patients with CD, those with high levels of Proteus had significantly higher Crohn disease activity index scores compared with those with low levels, suggesting that a greater rel…