Biological treatment approach to inflammatory bowel disease is similar in academic and nonacademic centres – prime time for decentralisation of inflammatory bowel disease care?
Katja Tepeš, Jurij Hanžel, David Štubljar, Karin Strmšek, Luka Erjavec, Eva Supovec, Zala Jagodic, Mirjam Končan, Jan Grosek, Jurij Aleš Košir, Aleš Tomažič, Urška Kogovšek, Gregor Norčič, Renata Šibli, Marija Žnidaršič, Tadeja Pačnik Vižintin, Barbara Sodin, Janez Breznik, Vanesa Anderle Hribar, Andreja Ocepek, Cvetka Pernat Drobež, Nejc Bukovnik, Andrej Zafošnik, Tamara Marušič, Nataša Jurečič Brglez, Maja Denkovski, Nataša Smrekar, Gregor Novak, Matic Koželj, Tina Kurent, Jože Simonič, Špela Pintar, Borut Štabuc, David Drobne- Gastroenterology
- Hepatology
Background
With the increasing number of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) patients, it is difficult to manage them within specialised IBD teams in academic medical centres: many are therefore treated in nonacademic IBD centres. It is unclear whether the time to introducing biologics is the same in both settings.
Aim
We aimed to compare treatment approach with biologics in academic vs. nonacademic centres.
Methods
We analysed Slovenian national IBD registry data (UR-CARE Registry, supported by the European Crohn’s and Colitis Organisation), which included 2 academic (2319 patients) and 4 nonacademic IBD (429 patients) centres.
Results
The disease phenotype was similar in both settings. In total, 1687 patients received 2782 treatment episodes with biologics. We observed no differences in treatment episodes with TNF-alpha inhibitors (60% vs. 61%), vedolizumab (24% vs. 23%), or ustekinumab (17% vs. 16%) in academic compared to nonacademic centres (
Conclusion
In this nationwide registry analysis, we observed that biological treatment choice was similar in academic and nonacademic settings. These findings support the decentralisation of IBD care.