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Tangyou Mao [1; 2] and Junxiang Li [2] and Lijuan Liu [3] and Weihan Zhao [4] and Yuyue Liu [2] and Kangli Gao [5] and Yi Guo [1; 2] and Tianhong Xie [1; 2] and Ningfei Li [1] and Rui Shi [2]

Academic Editor: Steve Harakeh

1, Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, No. 11, North Third Ring East Road, Beijing 100029, China, bucm.edu.cn

2, Gastroenterology Department, Dongfang Hospital, Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, No. 6, 1st Section, Fangxingyuan, Fangzhuang, Beijing 100078, China, bucm.edu.cn

3, China-Japan Friendship Hospital, No. 2, Cherry East Road, Beijing 100029, China, zryhyy.com.cn

4, Gastroenterology Department, The First Affiliated Hospital, Shanxi University of Chinese Medicine, No. 2, Weiyang West Road, Xianyang 712000, China, sxtcm.com

5, Gastroenterology Department, The First Affiliated Hospital, Anhui University of Chinese Medicine, No. 117, Mei Shan Road, Hefei 230031, China, ahmu.edu.cn

Received Feb 5, 2017; Accepted Aug 21, 2017

This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

1. Introduction

Ulcerative colitis (UC) is a nonspecific, chronic inflammation of the colon and rectum, primarily of the mucosal and submucosal layers [1, 2]. UC frequently occurs in young people and is characterized by abdominal pain, diarrhoea, and bloody mucopurulent stool [3]. UC-related complications including toxic giant colon, bleeding, perforation, and cancer seriously affect quality of life [4]. Thus, the World Health Organization lists UC as a miscellaneous problem [5].

The number of patients with UC is increasing annually in Asia, and the incidence of UC has increased more than 3 times in 10 years in China [6]. Because of delayed healing, the rate of UC recurrence is very high. In addition, the detection rate of UC-associated colorectal cancer (UC-CRC), which is one of the most serious complications, has increased, and UC-CRC now accounts for 10–15% of deaths in patients with UC [7]. The disease process that leads to UC-CRC involves “continuous intestinal inflammation, suspicious atypical hyperplasia, a low degree of atypical hyperplasia, and highly atypical hyperplasia and cancer”; however, the later steps can be skipped [8]. Moreover, the progression through “inflammation to atypical hyperplasia to cancer” in patients with UC is more rapid than the progression of “adenoma...

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