Alimentary TractInflammatory bowel disease in spouses and their offspring☆,☆☆
Section snippets
Patients
This study was conducted in 3 French departments (Nord, Pas-de-Calais, and Somme) through the Registre des Maladies Inflammatoires Chroniques de l'Intestin of Northern France (EPIMAD) and in 4 referral centers in Belgium (Leuven, Liège, and 2 in Brussels). The total populations of these areas was 4,516,884 for Northern France and 10,170,226 for Belgium. Gastroenterologists representing this population were asked to refer conjugal forms of IBD.
All the patients' family data were collected in a
Results
From January 1989 to July 2000, 30 couples with IBD were identified: 15 in Northern France and 15 in Belgium. There was no geographic clustering. None of the couples were consanguineous. Two couples belong to the same family, affected through 2 successive generations. None of the pairs were Jewish. Two couples were assigned to group A, 6 to group B, and 22 to group C (Table 1).Twenty couples (66%) were concordant for IBD, 17 for CD, and 3 for UC. Within the 17 couples with CD, there was a
Discussion
Given the population prevalence of IBD, the frequency of conjugal pairs developing IBD after cohabitation in Northern France and in Belgium seems to be greater than might be expected by chance. Although we recognize that probability values may be influenced by variations in the estimate of prevalence, we think the difference between observed and expected-by-chance cases is valid. Based on the data from several registries, the prevalence of IBD has been estimated to be 10–15 times the incidence.
References (20)
- et al.
Frequency of inflammatory bowel disease in offspring of couples both presenting with inflammatory bowel disease
Gastroenterology
(1991) - et al.
Clinical characteristics of Crohn's disease in 72 families
Gastroenterology
(1996) - et al.
Clustering of increased small intestinal permeability in families with Crohn's disease
Gastroenterology
(1997) - et al.
Inflammatory bowel disease and smoking: a review
Am J Gastroenterol
(1998) - et al.
Familial occurrence of inflammatory bowel disease
N Engl J Med
(1991) - et al.
Familial aggregation in Crohn's disease: increased age-adjusted risk and concordance in clinical characteristics
Gastroenterology
(1998) - et al.
Progress report.
Familial inflammatory bowel disease: heredity or environment?
Gut
(1976) - et al.
Genetics of inflammatory bowel disease
- et al.
Inflammatory bowel disease in married couples: 10 cases in Nord Pas de Calais region of France and Liège county of Belgium
Gut
(1994) - et al.
Ulcerative colitis in a husband and wife
Gut
(1994)
Cited by (0)
- ☆
Supported partly by the Association F. Aupetit, Institut de la Veille Sanitaire, INSERM (grant 92/R/2), CH et U de Lille, and the Ferring and Astra (IRMAD grant) companies.
- ☆☆
Address requests for reprints to: Jean–Frédéric Colombel, M.D., Clinique des maladies de l'Appareil Digestif et de la Nutrition, Hôpital Huriez, CHRU Lille, 59037, Lille, France. e-mail: [email protected]; fax: (33) 3-20-44-47-13; or S. Debeugny, M.D., Registre EPIMAD, Service d'Epidémiologie et de Santé Publique, Hôpital Calmette, CHRU Lille, France. Fax: (33) 3-20-44-69-45.