Perinatal and childhood risk factors for inflammatory bowel disease: a case-control study.

To determine whether exposure to a measles epidemic in utero or in infancy is a risk factor for the development of Crohn's disease, and to determine whether such an association can be found in individuals with subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE), a condition in which early infection with measles is known to be of aetiological importance.A postal questionnaire was sent to 16,875 members of two national inflammatory bowel disease patient...