Adult height in patients with early onset of Crohn's disease

Background: Growth impairment during childhood and adolescence is a common problem faced by patients with an early onset of Crohn's disease. Aims: To establish how the final adult height is affected in patients with early onset of symptoms of Crohn's disease. Methods: Information on height, parental height, and disease history was obtained from 135 patients with Crohn's disease who reached their adult height (men 22-40 years, women 18-40 years) using a See end of article for questionnaire and by outpatient measurement of height where possible. Subsequently, adult heights authors' affiliations were expressed as standard deviation scores, with and without correction for the expected target. height. Correspondence to: Results: Patients with onset of disease before puberty were shorter compared with patients with onset in adulthood (p<0.01). This difference was not statistically significant when adult heights were Department of corrected for parental height. Also, height standard deviation scores for those patients with onset of disease before puberty were significantly lower than those with onset of disease during puberty (p<0.05) but after correction for parental height the difference was not significant. The site of disease PO Box 9600, 2300 RC had no influence on adult height. Patients who had used corticosteroids during puberty were Leiden, the Netherlands; significantly shorter than patients who had not (p=0.005). This was also true when corrected for target height (p=0.007). Conclusions: Although there was a trend indicating a deficit in adult height in patients with an early onset of Crohn's disease, once adjustment was made for parental height, this difference was not sig nificant. Use of corticosteroids in puberty resulted in lower adult height.