Inflammatory bowel disease and coronary artery disease.

Chronic inflammation with the presence of excess serum acute-phase proteins, cytokines and cell adhesion molecules is increasingly being implicated in atherosclerosis. The association between inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and coronary artery disease (CAD) is unstudied. This is a preliminary, thesis-generating cross-sectional study aimed at evaluating the presence of traditional atherosclerotic risk factors in patients with IBD and CAD compared with the control population. The medical records of 42 consecutive IBD patients with CAD from 1999 to 2005 (27 men) were reviewed for the Framingham risk factors. The Framingham risk score (FRS) is calculated based on age, sex, hypertension, diabetes and hyperlipidemia. FRS of patients with IBD and CAD was compared with the FRS of 137 age- and sex-matched (102 men) consecutive patients with CAD (controls). When the Framingham risk score adjusted for group and gender with age as a covariate, the adjusted total FRS score was higher in patients with CAD alone (10.0 [3.75]) as compared to those with; IBD and CAD: (8.1 [3.47]; p = 0.001). FRS is lower in cases (patients with IBD and CAD) when compared with the controls (CAD alone).