Immune-related disorders in families of children with inflammatory bowel disease - A prospective cohort study

Children ≤18 years of age presenting to the IBD clinic between September 2007 and August 2009 with an established diagnosis of IBD were recruited. Age and sex matched controls without IBD were recruited. The study was a single-centre prospective cohort study. Outcome measures were prevalence of immune-based/inflammatory diseases in families of both patients and controls.One hundred and eight children in each group were recruited. Asthma was the most frequently reported disease in families of the IBD patients (52.8%) and controls (46.3%). The prevalence of IBD in families of IBD patients was significantly higher than in those without IBD (OR 2.03, 95% CI 1.04-3.95).The prevalence of immune-based disorders, as a group, in families of children with IBD was not significantly higher when compared to children without IBD.Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC) are considered to be gastrointestinal luminal diseases of immune-dysregulation [1,2]. It is postulated that, IBD results from dysfunctional luminal epithelial barrier, and facilitated by an inappropriate innate and acquired immune response to commensal microorganisms that occur in individuals with appropriate genetic predisposition and susceptibility [3,4]. A genome study by Becker et al. demonstrated the presence of non-random overlapping of susceptibility loci among autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis (MS), CD, psoriasis, asthma and type I diabetes (IDDM) [5]. Furthermore, there is considerable evidence that other immune-related disorders may be associated with bronchial asthma and rheumatoid arthritis [6-9].The aim of this single-centre, hospital-based prevalence study was to examine the prevalence of family history of immune-based diseases among pediatric patients with IBD compared to those without IBD. We hypothesized that there is an increased prevalence of inflammatory or immune-based disease among children diagnosed with IBD compared to children without