Navigating the transition: a multidisciplinary approach to inflammatory bowel disease in children
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In brief
In brief
This study evaluates a multidisciplinary approach to managing IBD in pediatric patients transitioning to adult care, examining 19 patients with ulcerative colitis or Crohn's disease. Results show low dropout rates and effective clinical remission, with differences in surgical needs and transition timing between disease types.
- Multidisciplinary care for pediatric IBD reduces dropout rates and facilitates smoother transition to adult gastroenterology services.
- Over 50% of pediatric IBD patients required biologic therapy, reflecting disease severity and modern treatment paradigms.
- Crohn's disease patients had significantly higher surgical rates (16%) compared to ulcerative colitis patients (7.7%).
- Compliance remained high with dropout rates of only 5-10% when using a coordinated multidisciplinary team approach.
- UC patients transitioned to adult care at older age (19.2 years) compared to CD patients (18.3 years), suggesting disease-specific timing needs.
Written by the GCMD Library team from the article.
Abstract
Purpose
A multidisciplinary approach to Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) has recently demonstrated a positive impact in pediatric patients, reducing dropout rates and facilitating the transition to adult care. Our study aims to evaluate how this approach influences disease activity, dropout rates, and transition.
Methods
We conducted a longitudinal observational study including all patients diagnosed with IBD during pediatric-adolescent age, with a minimum follow-up period of 12 months. For each patient, endpoints included therapeutic approach, need for surgery and transition features.
Results
We included 19 patients: 13 with Ulcerative Colitis (UC) and 6 with Crohn’s disease (CD). Most patients required multiple lines of therapy, with over 50% in both groups receiving biological drugs. Compliance was good, with a single dropout in each group (10, 5%). The need for surgery was significantly higher in the CD group compared to the UC group (16% vs. 7.7%, p < 0.01). Mean age at transition was significantly higher in the UC group compared to the CD group (19.2 ± 0.7 years SD vs. 18.3 ± 0.6 years SD, p < 0.05).
Conclusions
In our experience, the multidisciplinary approach to IBD in transition-age patients appears effective in achieving clinical remission, offering the potential to reduce therapeutic dropouts.