Restoration of quality of life of patients with inflammatory bowel disease after one year with antiTNFα treatment.

BACKGROUND: Inflammatory bowel disease impairs patients' health related quality of life (HRQOL). AntiTNFα agents control disease activity effectively. An ambitious goal of treatment is to achieve the normalization of health. This can be assessed by using a cut-off scoring threshold of the IBDQ-36 questionnaire. It has not been established if antiTNFα treatment is able to restore to normal patients' HRQOL.

AIMS: To determine whether patients with Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC) in clinical remission after one year treatment with antiTNFα agents achieve normalization of their HRQOL.

METHODS: Observational and cross-sectional study in patients treated with antiTNFα for one year and in sustained clinical remission. Patients completed the specific questionnaire IBDQ-36. Complete restoration of health was considered achieved when global score of IBDQ-36 was higher than 209 points.

RESULTS: 54 patients (43 with CD and 11 with UC) were included. Thirty patients received adalimumab and 24 infliximab. Median global score of the IBDQ-36 was 231, without differences between CD and UC (228 vs 235 respectively, p=ns). Normalization of HRQOL was achieved in all 11 UC patients and in 29 out of 43 CD patients (67%). In our sample population, restoration of health was significantly more frequent in UC than in CD (p<0.05).

CONCLUSIONS: One-year clinical remission induced by antiTNFα treatment restores perception of health to normal in most patients with IBD.