AGA eDigest

July 27, 2006

Phenotype at Diagnosis Predicts Recurrence Rates in Crohn's Disease

Phenotype at diagnosis has a predictive value for disease recurrence with upper gastrointestinal disease being the most important positive predictor, find researchers in the latest issue of Gut.

In Crohn's disease, studies associating phenotype at diagnosis and disease activity are important for patient counseling and health care planning. Doctors from the Netherlands calculated disease recurrence rates and correlated these with phenotypic traits at diagnosis, prospectively assembling a European-population-based inception cohort of Crohn's patients. The patients were classified according to the Vienna classification for disease phenotype at diagnosis and the researchers calculated surgical and non-surgical recurrence rates throughout a 10 year follow up period. Multivariate analysis was performed to classify risk factors present at diagnosis for recurrent disease.

The team classified a total of 358 for phenotype at diagnosis. Of those classified, 73 percent had a first recurrence and 32 percent a first surgical recurrence during the first 10 years after diagnosis. The researchers found that patients with upper gastrointestinal disease at diagnosis had an excess risk of recurrence, noting that age 40 years at diagnosis was protective. The team observed that colonic disease was a protective characteristic for resective surgery and that more frequent resective surgical recurrences were reported from Copenhagen. – Newsfeed from GastroHep.com

Gut; 2006: 55: 1124-30