The association between erythema nodosum and pyoderma gangrenosum and pediatric inflammatory bowel disease.

OBJECTIVES

The objectives of this study is to estimate rates and identify factors associated with erythema nodosum (EN) and pyoderma gangrenosum (PG) in pediatric patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).

METHODS

This cohort study examined longitudinal visits of patients aged ≤ 21 years from the ImproveCareNow (ICN) registry. We evaluated the association of factors at the patient-level (demographics and IBD diagnosis age) and visit-level (IBD severity scores, markers and phenotypes, comorbidities, and treatment) with the presence of EN and PG, using longitudinal logistic regression models adjusted for time and within-patient clustering.

RESULTS

A total of 285,913 visits from 32,497 patients aged ≤ 21 years from the ICN registry were analyzed. The occurrence of EN was 1.57% (95% confidence interval [95% CI]: 1.43%-1.71%) and the occurrence of PG was 0.90% (95% CI: 0.80%-1.00%). Co-occurrence of EN and PG was reported in 0.30% (95% CI: 0.25%-0.37%) patients. Both EN and PG were associated (p < 0.0001) with worse intestinal disease, lower remission, higher inflammatory markers, and extraintestinal manifestations (EIMs) arthritis and uveitis.

CONCLUSIONS

EN and PG were associated with increased disease severity and other noncutaneous EIMs (arthritis and uveitis). A small subset of patients had developed both EN and PG.