Inflammatory bowel disease tied to spondyloarthritis

Patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) more often have spondyloarthritis (SpA) before and after diagnosis of IBD, according to a study recently published in the Journal of Crohn's and Colitis.

Sarita Shrestha, from Örebro University in Sweden, and colleagues compared the occurrence of SpA in a nationwide cohort study involving 39,203 patients diagnosed with IBD during 2006 to 2016 and 390,490 matched reference individuals from the general population.

The researchers found that compared with reference individuals, IBD patients were more likely to have prevalent SpA at IBD diagnosis (2.5 versus 0.7 percent; odds ratio, 3.48). IBD patients also more often received a diagnosis of SpA, with 1,030 SpA events during 23,341,934 person-years of follow-up in IBD patients compared with 1,524 SpA events in the reference group (5.0 versus 0.72 per 1,000 person-years; hazard ratio, 7.15). In subgroup analyses, the associations were strongest among patients with Crohn disease (odds ratio, 5.20; hazard ratio, 10.55) and pediatric-onset IBD (odds ratio, 3.63; hazard ratio, 15.03).

"Patients with IBD who have joint symptoms should be examined for a potential SpA diagnosis. This recommendation is relevant both at the initial diagnostic work-up of patients with suspected IBD and during the follow-up of patients diagnosed with IBD," the authors write.

Several authors disclosed financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry.