Enteral nutrition improves health-related quality of life in Crohn's disease patients with long disease duration.

BACKGROUND/AIMS: Although enteral nutrition therapy has been highlighted as maintenance therapy for Crohn's disease, few reports have investigated the impact of enteral nutrition on the health-related quality of life of Crohn's disease patients.

METHODOLOGY

We cross-sectionally evaluated the effect of multiple clinical factors including enteral nutrition on the health-related quality of life of Crohn's disease patients focusing on patient disease duration using the Inflammatory Bowel Disease Questionnaire.

RESULTS

Of all 126 patients examined, 95 patients were receiving enteral nutrition. Multiple linear regression analysis using 18 clinical parameters revealed that disease activity was a dominant factor that affected the health-related quality of life of Crohn's disease patients, and that enteral nutrition was also an independent factor that improved the Inflammatory Bowel Disease Questionnaire total score, bowel symptoms, and systemic symptoms for patients with a disease duration of 10 years or more (P = 0.0090, 0.0033, and 0.016, respectively).

CONCLUSIONS

Enteral nutrition improved the health-related quality of life of Crohn's disease patients with long-term disease duration. Thus, enteral nutrition should be recommended as one of the options for maintenance therapy for Crohn's disease.