Joint lesions in inflammatory bowel diseases: the analysis of the Moscow regional patient registry and a clinical case

Abstract

Rationale: Extraintestinal manifestations (EIM) of an inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) are a sign of its more severe course. Joint lesions are most common among IBD EIM.Aim: To evaluate the prevalence and types of joint lesions in the population of IBD patients of the Moscow region.Materials and methods: We performed a retrospective analysis of medical files of the patients who were admitted to the Moscow Region Inflammatory Bowel Disease Center (MONIKI) for examination and treatment from August 1, 2019, to March 1, 2020. The study included 70 patients with confirmed diagnoses of IBD and confirmed or suspected involvement of the joints.Results: Thirty six of 70 patients with IBD and EIM (51.43%) had been diagnosed with Crohn's disease (CD), and 34 (48.57%) with ulcerative colitis (UC). The CD group included more men (n=21, 58.33%), whereas their proportion in the UC group was 47.02% (n=16). The mean age at CD diagnosis in the UC and CD groups was comparable: 38.3±13.7 years in men with CD and 40.5±12.8 years in men with UC, 37.7±11.1 years in women with CD and 35.7±14.0 in women with UC. The most prevalent among all IBD patients were X-ray negative peripheral arthralgias. Among joint lesions confirmed by radiological diagnostics, sacroileitis was most prevalent both in all IBD patients (24.3%), as well as in the UC group (17.6%), whereas in the CD patients its frequency was the same as that of ankylosing spondyloarthritis (AS) (30.6% of the cases). AS ranked second in the prevalence of joint lesions in the UC group (8.8%) and all IBD (20%). Psoriatic arthritis was diagnosed only in the CD patients (2 / 36). We describe a clinical case of CD with AS, complicated with psoriatic rash, treated with a monoclonal antibody to tumor necrosis factor alfa (anti-TNF-α).Conclusion: Peripheral arthropathias were most prevalent among all joint lesions in the group studied. EIM mirror a more aggressive phenotype of the disease and higher glucocorticosteroids requirements. Administration of anti-TNF-α agents allows for the control of both intestinal IBD manifestations and of the joint syndrome. However, drug-associated skin adverse event can occur during treatment with this drug class. In such a case, it is possible to switch the biological therapy to another class of drugs that we have demonstrated with the given clinical example.