Escherichia coli0157 enterohaemorrhagic colitis associated with pyelonephritis: CT findings

Abstract

Escherichia coli 0157:H7 is increasingly being recognized as a cause of infectious colitis, which typically results in bloody diarrhoea in an afebrile patient. The absence of fever often means that an infectious process is not considered in the differential diagnosis, particularly as this organism will not be detected in routine stool cultures. Inappropriate antibiotic therapy may increase the risk of development of haemolytic uraemic syndrome, a potentially fatal complication of this form of colitis, hence the importance of accurate diagnosis. On CT, it is characterized by severe diffuse colonic wall thickening, with little or no pericolic inflammatory changes. The radiologist may be the first to suspect the correct diagnosis and so should be aware of its imaging appearances. We report the case of a 19-year-old man who presented with typical radiological findings of enterohaemorrhagic colitis and whose CT also showed evidence of acute pyelonephritis; we suggest that this combination of abnormalities should further heighten radiologists' suspicions of infection due to E. coli 0157:H7, despite the absence of fever.