Objective: To determine the clinical characteristics of patients with thromboembolic events (TEE) included in the National Register of Inflammatory Bowel Diseases of Uruguay (RNEII).
Material and methods: From the RNEII database of 515 patients, an analysis of case series was made. Medical records of 23 patients with diagnosis of ETE were reviewed Image studies were required for diagnosis of deep thrombosis, while superficial thromboflebitis diagnosis was clinical.
Results: Eight patients who did not meet the inclusion criteria were excluded. Of the remaining fifteen patients (2.9%), 11 had ulcerative colitis (CUC) and 4 Crohn's disease (CD). The mean age was 42.1 years (range 12 to 64 years). 40% presented this complication before the 40 years old and the mortality caused by TEE was 6.7%. 53.3 of cases had active disease when the TEE presented. 63.6% of CUC patients developed an extensive colitis, while 100% of patients with CD had colonic involvement. Another extraintestinal manifestation was seen in 46.7% of patients, specially in the CUC group. Deep vein thrombosis was the most frequent TEE (66.7%). 40% of patients repeated more than one TEE episode.
Conclusions: TEE in inflammatory bowel disease are an important morbimortality factor because they can occur in young people, be recurrent and affect unusual vascular sites. TEE may be observed in both active and quiescent disease. They have been more frequently found in patients with extensive disease, colonic involvement and other extraintestinal manifestations.