Background: Pediatric inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) patients are prone to low bone mineral density (BMD) and increased risk for fractures. Our aim was to identify factors affecting BMD and to examine the longitudinal changes during follow up.
Methods: A retrospective longitudinal study conducted in 2 medical centers of BMD measurements of pediatric IBD patients by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA). Corresponding data on anthropometry, disease activity, pharmacological and surgical treatment were collected.
Results: 152 patients (age at diagnosis 12.1±3.6, 73 males) were included, of them 111 had one and 41 patients had two DXA scans. Height-SDS, weight-SDS and BMI-SDS at the time of first DXA correlated with BMD (L1-4 z-score; R=0.4, 0.55, 0.44 respectively, p-2).
Conclusions: BMD and changes in BMD correlate with anthropometry and with corticosteroid use throughout follow up. The improvement in BMD is more pronounced in patients with initial L1-4 z-scores >-2 and in patients aged ≥18 years at the 2nd scan.
