TITLE:
Disparity in clinical care for patients with inflammatory bowel disease between specialists and non-specialists
AUTHORS:
Tomoko Hirakawa, Jun Kato, Sakuma Takahashi, Hideyuki Suzuki, Mitsuhiro Akita, Izumi Inoue, Hisanobu Deguchi, Sakiko Hiraoka, Hiroyuki Okada, Kazuhide Yamamoto
KEYWORDS:
Inflammatory Bowel Disease; Clinical Care; Specialist
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Gastroenterology,
Vol.3 No.1,
February
28,
2013
ABSTRACT:
Background: Although inflammatory bowel disease
(IBD) patients have been increasing and new thera-peutic options for IBD have
been developed, there are relatively few clinicians who specialize in IBD. Patients
treated by a non-specialist of IBD may not receive appropriate treatment.
This study aimed to compare disease and medication status between IBD patients
treated by a specialist and those treated by a non-specialist. Methods: Medical
charts of ambulating IBD patients in two hospitals were examined. All
patients in one hospital were treated by one of the IBD specialists, while in
the other hospital, patients were treated by one of the gastroenterologists who
was a non-specialist of IBD. Results: The numbers of IBD patients were 255
(hospital with specialists) and 74 (hospital without specialists),
respectively. Disease activity of the patients was not well-controlled in the
hospital without specialists compared to in the hospi- tal with specialists
(ulcerative colitis (UC): p = 0.0006
and Crohn’s disease: p = 0.012,
respectively). The proportion of UC patients who received an insufficient
dose of mesalazine (Pentasa p term corticosteroids (UC: 23% vs. 5%, p p peutic drugs. Fostering and
placement of the specialist of IBD is an urgent problem.