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IBD can increase risk for coronary artery disease

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SAN DIEGO — Patients with IBD can be at increased risk of developing coronary artery disease, even if they have low traditional risk factors for the illness, according to data presented at the 2012 Digestive Disease Week Annual Meeting.

In a retrospective case-control study, researchers evaluated data from 56,568 patients with IBD, including ulcerative colitis (36.2% of patients) and Crohn’s disease (63.8%), in hospitals throughout the United States. Incidences of acute coronary syndromes within the group were compared with those in a control group of equal size.

Patients in the IBD group were more likely to be female, non-obese, non-hypertensive and non-diabetic than the control group. Without controlling for covariates, these patients were found more likely than controls to develop acute coronary artery disease (CAD) (OR=1.81; 95% CI, 1.64-1.98) After adjusting for factors including age, gender, race, obesity, hypertension and smoking status, patients with IBD were found to be at an even greater risk (OR=2.27; 95% CI, 2.06-2.50). Patients aged 18 to 70 years with ulcerative colitis were at the highest risk of developing CAD (OR=2.83; 95% CI, 2.39-3.35).

“Even though the patients with IBD had lower age and lower traditional risk factors like hypertension [or] smoking … still the risk of an acute coronary event is much higher in this group,” researcher Sumant Inamdar, MD, told Healio.com. “After adjusting for all traditional risk factors, the risk actually goes up. We would want to [determine] if this is because of the acute inflammatory process, or if there are other risk factors among this group of patients that we should be looking at. Maybe these patients are undertreated; they’re younger, they have less traditional risk factors, [so] we don’t treat them adequately and that’s why they’re having these acute coronary events. Identifying these patients and screening them for coronary artery disease, even though they have less risk factors, is extremely important.”

For more information:

Inamdar S. #Tu1285: Increased Risk of Coronary Artery Disease Among Patients With Inflammatory Bowel Disease. Presented at: the 2012 Digestive Disease Week Annual Meeting; May 19-22, San Diego.