Ischemic Colitis: Characteristics and Predictive Factors of Severity, in Hospital Mortality and Relapse

Abstract

Objective: The study was designed to describe a cohort of patients with ischemic colitis (I.C.) that required admission and the factors related to severity and mortality. Also, we tried to define the risk of relapse after discharge and the variables associated.Methods: Descriptive and retrospective study of patients with I.C. diagnosed between January 1996 and March 2003. Qualitative variables were analyzed using Fisher exact test and parametric variables were analyzed using Student´s t-test. Those variables statistically significant were included in a Cox regression model. Conclusions:We identified several predictive factors that can be used to stratify patients on admission. We found a relation between treatment with aspirin, antihypertensive drugs and relapse that should be confirmed in prospective studies.