Venous Thromboembolism in Hospitalized Inflammatory Bowel Disease Patients: The Magnitude of the Problem Is Staggering

There is evidence that thromboembolism as a disease-specific extraintestinal manifestation of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is developed as the result of multiple interactions between acquired and genetic risk factors. An imbalance of procoagulant, anticoagulant, and fibrinolitic factors predisposing to thrombosis has been reported by several studies in patients with IBD. The study by Nguyen and Sam demonstrates that hospitalized IBD patients have higher prevalence of venous thromboembolism and a more than two-fold excess of mortality compared with non-IBD) hospitalized patients. When the findings from this large study are combined with previous data, they suggest that thromboembolism is a significant cause of extraintestinal morbidity and mortality in IBD patients with a higher risk during hospitalization.