Pain Phenotypes, Treatment Patterns, and Utilization Burden Among Patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease Referred to a Tertiary Pain Clinic: A Retrospective Cohort Study.

Background

Pain is a prominent and disabling manifestation of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), including abdominal, pelvic, musculoskeletal, axial, and neuropathic pain phenotypes. Patients referred to pain clinics represent a selected subgroup with clinically meaningful, persistent, refractory, or diagnostically complex pain.

Objective

To characterize pain phenotypes, treatment patterns, interventional pain-care exposure, and utilization burden among patients with IBD evaluated in tertiary pain-clinic settings and to explore differences between Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis patients.

Methods

We performed a retrospective electronic medical-record cohort study of patients with documented IBD who were evaluated in pain-clinic settings between 24 October 2010 and 14 May 2026. Repeated clinical entries were aggregated into unique visit dates and patient-level variables. IBD diagnosis, pain phenotypes, treatment documentation, interventional procedures, and pain-clinic utilization were summarized descriptively using counts, percentages, means, medians, interquartile ranges, and ranges as appropriate. Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis subgroups were compared using univariable odds ratios with 95% confidence intervals and two-sided p-values. Because repeated clinical entries could belong to the same patient, the primary analytic unit was the patient rather than the individual note.

Results

The source dataset included 19,615 clinical entries representing 7053 unique pain-clinic visits among 596 unique patients with IBD. The cohort included 314 patients with Crohn's disease (52.7%), 247 with ulcerative colitis (41.4%), and 35 with IBD-unclassified (5.9%). The mean number of pain-clinic visits per patient was 11.8, with a median of four visits (interquartile range, 1-11). The dominant patient-level pain phenotypes were limb or peripheral joint pain (395/596, 66.3%), back or axial spine pain (358/596, 60.1%), and abdominal or pelvic pain (246/596, 41.3%). Overall, 437 patients (73.3%) had documentation of at least one interventional pain procedure. Compared with ulcerative colitis, Crohn's disease was associated with higher documentation of abdominal or pelvic pain (148/314, 47.1% vs. 82/247, 33.2%; odds ratio, 1.79; 95% confidence interval, 1.27-2.53; p = 0.001) and fibromyalgia-like or widespread pain (83/314, 26.4% vs. 39/247, 15.8%; odds ratio, 1.92; 95% confidence interval, 1.25-2.93; p = 0.0027). In contrast, radiofrequency procedures (59/314, 18.8% vs. 78/247, 31.6%; odds ratio, 0.50; 95% confidence interval, 0.34-0.74; p = 0.0005) and facet or medial branch procedures (79/314, 25.2% vs. 87/247, 35.2%; odds ratio, 0.62; 95% confidence interval, 0.43-0.89; p = 0.012) were less frequently documented in Crohn's disease than in ulcerative colitis.

Conclusions

Among patients with IBD referred to tertiary pain-clinic evaluation, pain was heterogeneous and predominantly musculoskeletal, axial, neuropathic, and procedurally targetable rather than exclusively visceral. These findings support structured, mechanism-based pain assessment integrated with gastroenterology, rheumatology, and pain-medicine care.