Ahmed Eltelbany, MD: Outcomes for IBD Patients With Obesity

Patients with obesity often face a number of comorbidities, including diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).

With those comorbidities often comes is an increased risk of mortality, longer hospital stays, and increased medical costs.

In an abstract presented during the 2022 American College of Gastroenterology (ACG) Annual Meeting in Charlotte, a team of investigators from the Cleveland Clinic examined some of the outcomes for patients with obesity and IBD compared to non-obese patients with IBD.

In an interview with HCPLive®, Ahmed Eltelbany, MD, Cleveland Clinic, explained the findings and how this data could be utilized for future research.

The result of the nearly 400,000 patient study show the cohort of patients with obesity and IBD (n = 36,375) had higher comorbidities and significantly higher total hospital charges ($48,607 vs $46,661 P <0.001) and longer length of stay (5.2 vs 5 days P <0.001) compared to the non-obese group.

Patients with obesity were also more likely to experience adverse outcomes during hospitalization including cardiac arrest and mechanical ventilation.

The study comes at a time when obesity rates are increasing among patients with IBD.