Introduction:
Flares of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) have been associated with venous thromboembolism, and recent studies suggest an association between IBD and myocardial infarction. The association between IBD flares and cerebral thrombotic disease is less clear. We therefore sought to evaluate the risk of cerebral venous and arterial stroke during IBD flares.
Hypothesis:
IBD flares are associated with an increased risk of a cerebral thrombotic event.
Methods:
We used data on all admissions at nonfederal acute care hospitals in California, Florida, and New York to identify patients with a primary ICD-9-CM diagnosis code for ulcerative colitis or Crohn’s disease between 2005 and 2012. Patients with a documented abdominal surgery during the index hospitalization were excluded. An IBD flare was defined as a period of 120 days from the start of the index IBD-related hospitalization. Our outcomes were ischemic stroke and cerebral venous sinus thrombosis. We used a self-controlled case series design in which we compared the risk of a thrombotic event in the 120 days after hospitalization versus the risk during the 120 days prior to hospitalization.
Results:
We identified 31,993 patients with IBD, of whom 98 (0.31%) developed ischemic stroke. As compared with the control period preceding the index hospitalization, the risk of stroke was significantly elevated during the 120 days after IBD-related hospitalization (incidence rate ratio [IRR] 2.0; 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.3-3.0). In subgroup analyses, this elevated risk was apparent only in the 16,280 patients older than the median age of 44 years (IRR 1.9; 95% CI, 1.27-2.95), and not in the 15,713 patients younger than 44 years of age, among whom we identified only one stroke. We found only one patient with a documented venous sinus thrombosis and thus could not estimate the risk associated with an IBD flare.
Conclusion:
We found an association between IBD-related hospitalization and the risk of ischemic stroke in older patients. These results build on recent studies suggesting an association between IBD and the risk of arterial thrombotic events. Further research is needed to better define the association between IBD and cerebrovascular events, especially rare events such as cerebral sinus thrombosis.
Cerebral venous sinus thrombosis in a pediatric patient with inflammatory bowel disease: A case report
