Enteritis toxin accumulation. Ischemic enteritis is uncommon compared to ischemic colitis due to the highly vascularised nature of the small intestine, allowing for sufficient blood flow in most situations. It develops due to circulatory shock of mesenteric vessels in the absence of major vessel occlusion, often associated with an underlying condition such as hypertension, arrhythmia or diabetes. Thus it has been considered to be associated with atherosclerosis. Surgical treatment is usually required due to the likelihood of stenosis or complete occlusion of the small intestine. Ischemic damage can range from mucosal infarction, which is limited only to the mucosa; mural infarction
Inflammation and the reaction of the body's inflammatory response — the two components are considered together when discussing an infection, and the word is used to imply a microbial invasive cause for the observed inflammatory reaction. Inflammation on the other hand describes purely the body's immunovascular response, whatever the cause may be. But because of how often the two are correlated, words ending in the suffix "-itis" (which refers to inflammation) are sometimes informally described as referring to infection. For example, the word "urethritis" strictly means only "urethral inflammation", but clinical health care providers usually discuss urethritis as a urethral infection