Body composition profile of children and adolescent patients with inflammatory bowel disease.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS

Children with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) generally show an alteration in their fat and soft tissue mass contents. These alterations may influence disease severity and increase the risk of post-operative complications.

METHODS

This is a retrospective cross-sectional study of patients with IBD, diagnosed and followed up between 2013 and 2018, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, who had dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA) scans for bone density evaluation. Obesity was defined based on fat mass index (FMI) and myopenia based on appendicular skeletal muscle mass (SMMa).

RESULTS

This study incorporated 95 child and adolescent patients (52% female) with IBD: 59 with Crohn's disease (CD) and 36 with ulcerative colitis (UC), mean age 11.8 ± 3.3 years and mean duration of illness 1.8 ± 1.9 years. The most common disease phenotype and behaviour for CD patients were ileocolonic (57.6%) and non-stricturing and non-penetrating (76.3%). Of UC patients, 75% had extensive disease (pancolitis). Body composition profile in the total IBD cohort was classified as normal in 49.5%, obese in 26.3%, myopenic in 23.2% and myopenic-obese in 1.1%. The use of biological therapy was identified as a negative predictor for both obesity (OR = 7.0, 95% CI: 1.3-37.9, P = .02) and myopenia (OR = 0.11, 95% CI:0.02-0.47, P = .003), and female gender was shown to predict myopenia (OR = 3.5, 95% CI: 1.0-11.8, P = .04).

CONCLUSIONS

Saudi Arabian children with IBD showed comparable body composition profiles to adult patients with IBD. Biological therapy was associated with a decreased incidence of both obesity and myopenia, and female gender was found to predict myopenia.