Last year, someone I know suddenly developed pancreatitis, which was a surprise because he did not drink alcohol and ultrasound showed no gallstones. Then he developed bloody diarrhea, followed by a kidney stone. How do you put that all together?

After reading this edition of FP Essentials™, it will probably be obvious. Patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) sometimes develop pancreatitis, kidney stones, and a variety of other extraintestinal manifestations, ranging from eye conditions to arthritis to skin rashes. And those extraintestinal manifestations often precede development of the gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms that we all associate with IBD.

This FP Essentials covers a lot of ground. In Section One, the authors review the diagnosis and management of occult GI bleeding. Section Two reviews the new recommendations for colorectal cancer screening as well as recently developed screening methods that many of us would not have known about. Section Three discusses current diagnosis and management of IBD; we learn not only about the extraintestinal manifestations, but also the many new management options. It also discusses microscopic colitis. Section Four provides an update on the diagnosis and management of malabsorption syndromes, including celiac disease, lactose intolerance, bile acid malabsorption, exocrine pancreatic insufficiency, and small intestinal bacterial overgrowth.

I hope you find this FP Essentials as useful and informative as I did.

Barry D. Weiss, MD, FAAFP, Medical Editor
Professor, Department Family and Community Medicine
University of Arizona College of Medicine, Tucson