NAFLD linked with increased readmissions in IBD
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Patients with inflammatory bowel disease who also had non-alcoholic fatty liver disease had higher readmission rates, according to research presented at Crohn’s and Colitis Congress.
“NAFLD is highly prevalent in IBD patients,” Shaya Noorian, MD, of the University of California, Los Angeles, said in his presentation. “Currently, there is a paucity of data examining the impact of NAFLD on clinical outcomes in IBD patients.”
Researchers conducted a propensity-score matched study using data from the Nationwide Readmissions Database from 2016 to 2017. They identified patients with IBD, NAFLD and comorbidities and matched patients with NAFLD to those without based on several variables, including age and IBD type. The primary outcomes were readmission and death. They also compared length of stay and cost of care.
Investigators included 11,497 patients with Crohn’s disease and 6,120 patients with ulcerative colitis. The prevalence of NAFLD among hospitalized patients in each group was 2.4% and 2.1%, respectively.
Noorian and colleagues determined that NAFLD was associated with a higher risk for readmission in CD (HR = 1.93; 95% CI, 1.93-2.12), as well as UC (HR = 1.92; 95% CI, 1.63-2.25). There was no significant link between NAFLD and death in either CD or UC.
Additionally, researchers found that NAFLD was associated with longer length of stay by 0.69 days in CD (95% CI, 0.25-1.13 days) and 0.82 days in UC (95% CI, 0.31-1.32 days). It was also associated with higher cost of care ($7,222 in CD and $11,272 in UC).
“Our study illustrated that NAFLD is associated with a higher risk of IBD readmission, longer length of stay and higher cost of care in IBD patients after adjusting for metabolic factors,” Noorian said. “This suggests that the presence of NAFLD itself, or non-metabolic factors linking IBD and NAFLD, may contribute to worse clinical outcomes.”
Collapse
Read more about
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts