PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Ahmir Ahmad AU - Anthony A Laverty AU - Chris Alexakis AU - Tom Cowling AU - Sonia Saxena AU - Azeem Majeed AU - Richard C G Pollok TI - Changing nationwide trends in endoscopic, medical and surgical admissions for inflammatory bowel disease: 2003–2013 AID - 10.1136/bmjgast-2017-000191 DP - 2018 Mar 01 TA - BMJ Open Gastroenterology PG - e000191 VI - 5 IP - 1 4099 - http://bmjopengastro.bmj.com//content/5/1/e000191.short 4100 - http://bmjopengastro.bmj.com//content/5/1/e000191.full AB - Background and study aims In the last decade, there have been major advances in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) management but their impact on hospital admissions requires evaluation. We aim to investigate nationwide trends in IBD surgical/medical elective and emergency admissions, including endoscopy and cytokine inhibitor infusions, between 2003 and 2013.Patients and methods We used Hospital Episode Statistics and population data from the UK Office for National Statistics.Results Age-sex standardised admission rates increased from 76.5 to 202.9/100 000 (p<0.001) and from 69.5 to 149.5/100 000 (p<0.001) for Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC) between 2003–2004 and 2012–2013, respectively. Mean length of stay (days) fell significantly for elective (from 2.6 to 0.7 and from 2.0 to 0.7 for CD and UC, respectively) and emergency admissions (from 9.2 to 6.8 and from 10.8 to 7.6 for CD and UC, respectively). Elective lower gastrointestinal (GI) endoscopy rates decreased from 6.3% to 3.7% (p<0.001) and from 18.4% to 17.6% (p=0.002) for CD and UC, respectively. Elective major abdominal surgery rates decreased from 2.8% to 1.0% (p<0.001) and from 4.9 to 2.4 (p=0.010) for CD and UC, respectively, with emergency rates also decreasing significantly for CD. Between 2006-2007 and 2012-2013, elective admission rates for cytokine-inhibitor infusions increased from 11.1 to 57.2/100 000 and from 1.4 to 12.1/100 000 for CD and UC, respectively.Conclusions Rising IBD hospital admission rates in the past decade have been driven by an increase in the incidence and prevalence of IBD. Lower GI endoscopy and surgery rates have fallen, while cytokine inhibitor infusion rates have risen. There has been a concurrent shift from emergency care to shorter elective hospital stays. These trends indicate a move towards more elective medical management and may reflect improvements in disease control.