Introduction:

Anemia is the most frequent complication of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). This study aims to determine the prevalence, connection, and treatment of anemia in IBD in a local context.

Materials and Methods:

This retrospective study was conducted at The Pablo Tobon Uribe Hospital, in Medellín (Colombia) with adult patients who (were admitted) came for consultation from 2001, until February 2019. Absolut and relative frequencies were calculated. The Chi square test of independence was applied for comparing two proportions and the odds ratio (OR) was estimated.

Results:

A total of 759 IBD patients were enrolled, 544 (71.6%) with ulcerative colitis (UC); 200 (26.3%) Crohn’s disease (CD), and 15 (1.9%) with non-classifiable IBD. In total, 185 (24,4 %) IBD patients had a diagnosis of anemia, that is less frequent in UC patients that in CD patients (22,2 % versus 32,5 %, respectively; OR: 0,684; CI: 0,456-0,96; p = 0,03). Extensive UC patients (54,1 %) had a more recurrent level of anemia than non-extensive UC (46,3 %) (OR: 4,4; CI: 2,6-7,4; p = 0,001); the same result was observed when severe UC (66,1 %) was compared with UC non-severe (32,3 %) (OR: 4,95; CI: 2,87-8,51; p = 0,000). In the analysis of CD, patients with a non-inflammatory response (B2, B3: 73,9 %) had a more recurrent level of anemia than patients with an inflammatory response (B1: 26,2 %) (OR: 0,35; CI: 0,18-0,67; p = 0,000). 44,3 % of the total number of patients received treatment, 19,5 % received oral iron, 20,0 % received intravenous iron, and 16,2 % received a blood transfusion.

Conclusions:

In our context, Anemia is a common complication in IBD cases (24,4 %). Despite the existence of international guidelines, the treatment in our context is not optimal.

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