In-Hospital Mortality, Higher Costs Linked to Clostridium difficile with Ulcerative Colitis/Crohn's Disease

The co-occurrence of

and ulcerative colitis (UC) or Crohn’s disease (CD) is associated with higher in-hospital mortality and greater health care costs and resource utilization, according to a study from California researchers published in the

.

Clostridium difficile (C. difficile)European Journal of Gastroenterology & Hepatology

Considering mortality outcomes and health care costs are generally higher among patients with later disease diagnosis and co-occurring diseases, the findings from this study indicate the importance of early screening strategies for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) or other gastrointestinal-related disorders in patients with

.

C. difficile

“IBD is a chronic inflammatory disease of the gastrointestinal tract that is associated with increased risks of infections as a result of both the disease process itself as well as the immunosuppressive therapies we use to treat the disease, [and] hospitalized patients with IBD are at particularly high risk of concurrent infectious complications, especially with

infection,” lead study author Robert Wong, MD, MS, of the Highland Hospital in Oakland, California, told

. “Our study demonstrates that infection with

among hospitalized IBD patients is associated with significantly increased risk of death and significantly increased risk of health care resource utilization.”

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C. difficileMD MagC. difficile