Venous Thromboembolism and Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) have elevated risk for venous thromboembolism (VTE) — including deep venous thrombosis (DVT) and pulmonary embolism (PE) — and possibly arterial thrombosis.

To estimate the size of that risk, researchers in Denmark conducted a population-based study of 49,799 patients with IBD (14,211 with Crohn disease, 35,229 with ulcerative colitis, and 359 with unspecified IBD) and a non-IBD comparison group of 477,504 residents matched by age and sex.

Overall, patients with IBD had a two-fold increased risk for VTE compared with the non-IBD population. Although the overall incidence rates for DVT and PE increased with age, the relative risks for patients with IBD compared with residents without IBD were high…