We evaluated a cohort of 2811 IBD patients for a history of symptomatic, objectively confirmed first VTE, recruited from 14 referral centers. Patients with VTE before IBD diagnosis or cancer were excluded. Incidence rates were calculated based on person-years from IBD diagnosis to first VTE or end of follow-up, respectively.
2784 patients (total observation time 24,778 person-years) were analyzed. Overall, of 157 IBD patients with a history of VTE, 142 (90.4 % ) had deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and/or pulmonary embolism (PE), whereas 15 (9.6 % ) had cerebral, portal, mesenteric, splenic or internal jugular vein thrombosis. The prevalence and incidence rate of all VTE was 5.6 % and 6.3 per 1000 person years, respectively. Patients with VTE were older at IBD diagnosis than those without VTE (34.4 ¡À 14.8 years vs 32.1 ¡À 14.4 years, p = 0.045), but did not differ regarding sex, underlying IBD and disease duration. 121 (77.1 % ) VTE were unprovoked, 122 (77.7 % ) occurred in outpatients and 78 (60.9 % ) in patients with active disease. Medication at first VTE included corticosteroids (42.3 % ), thiopurines (21.2 % ), and infliximab (0.7 % ).
VTE is frequent in IBD patients. Most of them are unprovoked and occur in outpatients. DVT and PE are most common and unusual sites of thrombosis are rare.