What Are the Most Common Causes of Mucus in Diarrhea?

Mucous stool can occur in acute dysentery, but also in chronic enteritis, chronic bacillary dysentery, and irritable bowel syndrome. Treatment should be directed at the cause and symptomatic treatment.

Basic Information

English name: mucous stool
Visiting department: Gastroenterology
Multiple groups: Patients with digestive diseases

Common causes: Acute dysentery, chronic enteritis, chronic bacillary dysentery, irritable bowel syndrome, colorectal polyps, and non-typhoid Salmonella infection, diarrhea in children, colorectal cancer, etc.

Causes of mucus stool and common diseases

A small amount of mucus in normal feces is not easy to detect because it is evenly mixed with the feces. If there is mucus visible to the naked eye, it means that the amount is increased. Mucus can appear in acute dysentery, but also in chronic enteritis, chronic bacillary dysentery, irritable bowel syndrome, colorectal polyps, other gastrointestinal infectious diseases such as non-typhoid Salmonella infection, diarrhea in children, diarrhea in infants, Infectious gastroenteritis, ulcerative colitis, colorectal cancer, etc.

Differential diagnosis of mucus

1. Stool bright red

You may develop acute hemorrhagic necrotizing enteritis due to eating unclean food.

2. Bright red blood droplets adhere to the surface of the stool

Not mixed with stool. Common in internal hemorrhoids, external hemorrhoids and anal fissures. If blood is attached to the surface of the stool, and the stool becomes a flat band, you should go to the hospital to check for rectal cancer, sigmoid colon cancer, and rectal ulcers.

3. Dark red stool like jam

And there are more mucus, often suffering from amoebic dysentery. Amoeba in the stool is a parasite. Patients with bacterial dysentery also have mucus and blood in their stools, but they do not have a foul odor like those in patients with amoebic dysentery.

4. Stool asphalt

Dark and bright, often bleeding from esophagus, stomach, and duodenal ulcer. The blood is originally red. When it enters the digestive tract, the hemoglobin iron in the blood combines with intestinal sulfides to produce iron sulfide, which causes the stool to be tar-like black. In addition, esophageal varices and bleeding, and continuous vomiting after overeating resulted in bleeding from the cardia mucosa at the junction of the esophagus and stomach.

5. Stool is gray like clay

It means that the passage of bile into the intestine has been blocked, and bile has to be deposited on the skin through blood circulation, making the skin yellow. Gallstones, bile duct cancer, pancreatic head cancer, and liver cancer are all "stoppers" for bile flowing into the digestive tract. There is no bile in the digestive tract, and the stool is gray-white clay.

6. Poop red and white like snot

Commonly known as red and white frozen seeds, this is a characteristic of acute bacterial diseases. It is a mixture of pus, blood, and mucus. Patients with chronic colitis may also develop red and white freezers.

7. The stool is white and foamy

It is often a syndrome of indigestion. If this happens in young children, it is called celiac disease in young children.

8. Thin stools

May be bleeding from the large intestine. If mucus and pus are mixed, check the large intestine mucosa for inflammation.

Mucus examination

If there is a large amount of mucus, it may indicate intestinal inflammation or an allergic reaction. If the stool is mixed with the mucus, the mucus may come from the small intestine or the proximal colon; if the mucus is only attached to the surface of the stool and shows a certain bright luster, it means that the mucus is from the lower colon or rectum.

Microscopic examination

(1) Leukocytes are occasionally seen in normal feces without red blood cells. Leukocytes are less than 15 / high-power field during enteritis; more than 15 / high-power field or even full field in acute bacterial dysentery. Intestinal inflammation (such as colitis, bacillary dysentery) and bleeding (polyps, tumors, hemorrhoids, etc.) can be seen in red blood cells. Eosinophilic leukocytes can be seen with allergic or intestinal parasite infections, accompanied by Shack-Leyden's crystals; macrophages can be seen in bacillary dysentery and rectal inflammation; cancer cells can sometimes be found in the stool of patients with colorectal cancer.

(2) A small amount of starch granules, muscle fibers, and fat droplets can be seen normally in food residues . If it increases, it indicates digestive malabsorption, which is more common in chronic pancreatitis and pancreatic insufficiency (such as pancreatic head cancer).

(3) Human yeast and ordinary yeast can be seen normally in the intestinal yeast . Candida albicans can be seen when the intestinal flora is out of order.

(4) Parasites When the human body is infected with parasites, corresponding eggs can appear in the feces. Ascaris eggs, hookworm eggs, roundworm eggs, clonorchiasis eggs, ginger leaf eggs, and amoeba trophozoites are common. Wait.

2. Chemical inspection

(1) Occult blood test There is a small amount of bleeding in the digestive tract, and the red blood cells are broken down so that they cannot be found under the microscope, so it is called occult blood (OB), but the occult blood test can be positive. Normal people have a negative stool OB. When gastrointestinal diseases cause bleeding, such as gastrointestinal ulcers, gastrointestinal tumors, inflammation, etc., stool OB is positive or even strongly positive.

(2) Qualitative test of fecal choline Check if fecal choline exists in the stool. Fecal bile can combine with mercury to form a red compound, and the shade of red is proportional to the content of fecal bile. Normal stool was positive (red); strongly positive in hemolytic anemia; negative (not red) in common bile duct obstruction.

(3) Fecal gallbladder was negative under normal circumstances.