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Patients with systemic sclerosis may be at lower risk for Crohn’s disease
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Patients with systemic sclerosis in Taiwan had a lower prevalence of Crohn’s disease compared to a group of participants designed to represent the general population in Taiwan, according to recently published data.
Researchers studied 2,829 patients with systemic sclerosis and 8,257 participants from Taiwan’s Ministry of Health and Welfare database of the National Health Insurance (NHI) program, which includes 99.6% of Taiwan’s population between 1998 and 2011. Both groups were similar in age distribution.
Crohn’s disease was identified in 332 participants overall, with 11 cases identified in the group of patients with systemic sclerosis and 321 cases in the general population. The researchers calculated an incidence rate of Crohn’s disease as 0.56 cases per 1,000 person-years compared to 4.82 cases per 1,000 person-years in the group that represented the general population. Adjusted for age, the SIR was 0.12 for Crohn’s disease in patients with systemic sclerosis and remained lower than the risk to the general population when the group was stratified based on age.
In men, three patients with systemic sclerosis were diagnosed with Crohn’s disease compared to 62 men in the general population. Among men with systemic sclerosis, the incidence rate was 0.97 per 1,000 patient years for developing Crohn’s disease compared to 5.47 cases per 1,000 patient-years in the general population.
Crohn’s disease was identified in eight women from the group of patients with systemic sclerosis compared to 259 women from the general population. The incidence of Crohn’s disease was calculated as 0.48 cases per 1,000 person-years among women with systemic sclerosis and 4.68 per 1,000 person-years in the general population. The SIR for developing Crohn’s disease was 0.1 for women with systemic sclerosis after adjusting for age and the risk remained lower than the risk in the general population when the group was stratified by age. – by Shirley Pulawski
Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.
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