Sexual dysfunction in IBD improved with biologic therapy
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Patients with inflammatory bowel disease who responded to biologic therapy experienced improvement in sexual dysfunction, according to research presented at the ACG Annual Scientific Meeting.
“Previous studies have reported significantly impaired sexual function in patients with IBD, but few have tracked sexual dysfunction over time or with treatment of the disease,” Gabriel Castillo, MD, from NYU Langone Medical Center, said during a poster presentation. “The present study aims to track sexual dysfunction over time using IBD-specific scales — the recently developed IBD Male Sexual Dysfunction Scale (MSDS) and Female Sexual Dysfunction Scale (FSDS) — specifically in patients starting IBD therapy with biologic or small-molecule agents.”
The researchers also sought to correlate sexual dysfunction with disease activity, treatment of disease and other IBD health-related quality of life and psychosocial indices, Castillo noted.
The study included 123 patients, of whom 44% were women, 56% were men and 31% were “non-white.” Forty-two percent of the cohort had Crohn’s disease and 58% had ulcerative colitis. In terms of therapy, 39% of patients initiated anti-tumor necrosis factor inhibitor therapy, 32% initiated anti-interleukin-12/23 therapy, 28% initiated anti-integrin therapy and 2% initiated Janus kinase inhibitor therapy.
Information was collected via surveys at baseline and 2 and 6 months after initiation of therapy. Of the 123 patients who completed the baseline survey, 89 completed the second survey and 74 completed the third survey.
Preliminary results revealed a strong correlation between sexual dysfunction and clinical disease activity (P < .001), depression (P < .001), disability (P < .001) and quality of life indices (P < .001), according to Castillo.
Among the more than 50% of patients who had a significant improvement in their clinical disease activity scale scores with treatment, there appeared to be significant improvement in MSDS (P = .006) and FSDS scores (P = .041). However, this finding was not observed among patients who were considered nonresponders to therapy, Castillo noted.
“These findings further clarify the relationship between sexual dysfunction, disease activity and therapeutic response in IBD,” Castillo said.
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Castillo G, et al. Sexual dysfunction improves with biologic therapy in men and women with IBD. Presented at: ACG Annual Scientific Meeting; Oct. 22-27, 2021; Las Vegas (hybrid meeting).
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