Overview

The first step most doctors take in diagnosing ulcerative colitis is to get a medical history, including a detailed inventory of symptoms. The frequency and severity of diarrhea is a good indicator of the seriousness of a patient's ulcerative colitis. Six or more bowel movements per day usually indicate severe disease. The frequency of bowel movements during an attack, compared with the number on a typical day, is more meaningful than the absolute number. Likewise, the number of nocturnal bowel movements is a crucial part of the history of the disease. These symptoms accompanied by fever, low blood pressure, or a rapid heart beat are indicators of severe UC and dictate the need for more extensive testing in a hospital setting.

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A key to evaluating ulcerative colitis is ruling out other illnesses that mimic the symptoms of UC. These include a variety of food-borne infections such as campylobacter, shigella, salmonella, E. coli 0157:H7, and amebiasis and other disorders caused by intestinal parasites.

This section contains more information on:

• Laboratory and imaging tests
• Endoscopic tests
• Screening for colon cancer