J Clin Med. 2021 Apr 13;10(8):1671. doi: 10.3390/jcm10081671.

Alejandro Hernández-Camba ¹, Marta Carrillo-Palau ², Laura Ramos ², Noemi Hernández Alvarez-Buylla ², Inmaculada Alonso-Abreu ², Anjara Hernández-Pérez ², Milagros Vela ¹, Laura Arranz ¹, Manuel Hernández-Guerra ², Miguel Ángel González-Gay ^3 4 5, Iván Ferraz-Amaro ⁶

Author information

• ¹Division of Gastroenterology, Hospital Universitario de Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria, 38010 Tenerife, Spain.
• ²Division of Gastroenterology, Hospital Universitario de Canarias, 38320 Tenerife, Spain.
• ³Division of Rheumatology, Hospital Universitario Marqués de Valdecilla, Universidad de Cantabria, 39008 Santander, Spain.
• ⁴Epidemiology, Genetics and Atherosclerosis Research Group on Systemic Inflammatory Diseases, Hospital Universitario Marqués de Valdecilla, IDIVAL, 39008 Santander, Spain.
• ⁵Cardiovascular Pathophysiology and Genomics Research Unit, School of Physiology, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg 2193, South Africa.
• ⁶Division of Rheumatology, Hospital Universitario de Canarias, 38320 Tenerife, Spain.

Abstract

The addition of carotid ultrasound into cardiovascular (CV) risk scores has been found to be effective in identifying patients with chronic inflammatory diseases at high-CV risk. We aimed to determine if its use would facilitate the reclassification of patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) into the very high-CV-risk category and whether this may be related to disease features. In this cross-sectional study encompassing 186 IBD patients and 175 controls, Systematic Coronary Risk Evaluation (SCORE), disease activity measurements, and the presence of carotid plaques by ultrasonography were assessed. Reclassification was compared between patients and controls. A multivariable regression analysis was performed to evaluate if the risk of reclassification could be explained by disease-related features and to assess the influence of traditional CV risk factors on this reclassification. After evaluation of carotid ultrasound, a significantly higher frequency of reclassification was found in patients with IBD compared to controls (35% vs. 24%, p = 0.030). When this analysis was performed only on subjects included in the SCORE low-CV-risk category, 21% IBD patients compared to 11% controls (p = 0.034) were reclassified into the very high-CV-risk category. Disease-related data, including disease activity, were not associated with reclassification after fully multivariable regression analysis. Traditional CV risk factors showed a similar influence over reclassification in patients and controls. However, LDL-cholesterol disclosed a higher effect in controls compared to patients (beta coef. 1.03 (95%CI 1.02-1.04) vs. 1.01 (95%CI 1.00-1.02), interaction p = 0.035) after adjustment for confounders. In conclusion, carotid plaque assessment is useful to identify high-CV risk IBD patients.