Enteropathic arthritis or enteroarthritis (EA) may be a spondyloarthritis (SpA) which occurs in patients with inflammatory bowel diseases (IBDs) and other gastrointestinal diseases, like Whipple’s disease (WD), disorder (CD), and operation surgery.
A relationship between bowel and joints was reported for the primary time by Smith in 1922, who described in patients with atrophic arthritis (RA) underwent surgery for colectomy an improvement of articular symptoms. Later, Bargen et al., in 1929, and Hench, in 1935, described a peripheral arthritis involvement in patients with IBD and also reported the arthritis tendency to flare with exacerbation of the colitis and to recede with the remission of bowel symptoms. At the top of the 1950s, some authors described the occurrence of sacroiliitis in patients with UC and CD.
The aim of this review is to explain clinical and pathophysiological data about EA. However, due to the many lack of studies on this specific issue, most of results are derived from studies on IBD or other sorts of spondyloarthritis.