This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.

Prevalence of inflammatory bowel disease higher in patients with hidradenitis suppurativa

Patients with hidradenitis suppurativa had a four to eight times higher prevalence of inflammatory bowel disease compared with the general northern European population, according to research recently published in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology.

Researchers studied patients with hidradenitis suppurativa (HS) who visited dermatology departments in the Netherlands and Belgium and were asked whether they had inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Patients who reported having IBD were examined by a gastroenterologist, and clinical characteristics were collected from medical files.

There were 1,076 patients with HS (mean age, 38.4 years; 69.9% women) included in the study, with most patients having Hurley stage I (43.9%) or stage II (44.2%) and a median disease duration of 11 years.

A diagnosis of IBD was confirmed in 36 patients for a prevalence of 3.3% (95% CI, 2.3 -4.4), with 27 patients experiencing Crohn’s disease for a prevalence of 2.5% (95% CI, 1.6-3.4), and nine patients experiencing ulcerative colitis for a prevalence of 0.8% (95% CI, 0.3-1.4).

There was less frequency of obesity reported in patients with IBD and HS (13.9%) compared with the patients who had HS only (31.2%; P = .04), but there were no differences in sex, family history of HS, disease severity or duration, body areas affected by HS or smoking status.

“This multicenter cross-sectional study shows that 36 out of 1,076 HS patients (3.3%) had IBD, resulting in a prevalence of 2.5% for [Crohn’s disease] and 0.8% for [ulcerative colitis] in HS patients,” Inge E. Deckers, MD, PhD, from the department of dermatology at Erasmus MC University Medical Center Rotterdam in the Netherlands, and researchers wrote. “In comparison, the estimated prevalence of IBD in northern Europe ranges from 0.41% to 0.74%, with a prevalence of [Crohn’s disease] between 0.14% and 0.32% and a prevalence of [ulcerative colitis] between 0.24% and 0.41%.

“Because it is not possible to identify IBD patients by their HS phenotype, it is advisable to ask patients with HS about abdominal complaints, such as recurrent abdominal pain and bloody stool. If IBD is suspected or patients have intersphincteric fistulas, an endoscopy is advisable to exclude IBD,” they wrote. – by Bruce Thiel

Disclosure: Deckers reports no relevant financial disclosures. Please see the full study for a list of the other researchers’ relevant financial disclosures.