P-105 Gastroenterologist Laboratory Testing in Patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease Does Not Increase Linearly by Decade

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Laboratory testing is important in the overall management of chronic diseases. Aging results in increased utilization of laboratory services. Individuals with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) require laboratory tests as objective measurements of disease activity and assessment of medication side effects. There is limited data which has specifically evaluated the use of laboratory testing in the different age ranges of adult patients with inflammatory bowel disease. This study evaluated the frequency of laboratory testing in geriatric and younger patients with IBD. METHODS: A retrospective medical record review of inflammatory bowel disease patients at a university medical center during an 18 month period was performed using a multispecialty electronic health record. There were no exclusion factors. Patient age, disease type, and laboratory testing performed by gastroenterologists were obtained. An assessment of the frequency of laboratory tests in patients <65 and .65 years was performed. A database, maintaining patient confidentiality, was created. Statistical analysis was performed using unpaired t-testing, with statistical significance was set at P < 0.05. The study was approved by the university institutional review board. RESULTS: Three hundred sixteen medical records were reviewed. There were 189 women and 127 men, with a mean age of 41.8 years. One hundred seventy-one patients had Crohn's disease, 143 ulcerative colitis and 2 with indeterminate colitis. There were 24 patients .65 years. Patients .65 years had 5.17 labs and patients <65 had 8.74 labs performed for evaluation of IBD status in 1.5 years. Geriatric patients had significantly less (P ¼ 0.0004) labs than younger patients. There was no significant difference in the rate of laboratory testing in geriatric and younger patients based upon gender (P ¼ 0.74), ethnicity (P ¼ 0.46) or disease type (P ¼ 0.86). CONCLUSIONS: Individuals with chronic diseases have more health care encounters than others. Aging results in increased frequency of physician visits and laboratory tests. This is one of the few studies that evaluated the utilization of outpatient laboratory testing in geriatric patients with inflammatory bowel disease. In this study there was significantly less lab testing in the older patients than those who were <65. The significance of this finding is uncertain. The result may correlate with less gastroenterology visits by the geriatric IBD patient. However, it may also suggest that inflammatory bowel disease does not worsen aging. Further study is necessary to increase the knowledge about inflammatory bowel disease in the elderly patient.