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Abstract
Introduction
There are few studies showing that patients with inflammatory bowel diseases suffer from fatigue. The current study examined how strong the effects of inflammation are on fatigue.
Methods
108 patients with IBD with or without enteropathic arthropathy were recruited in this study from the SPICE cohort from Erlangen. They can be classified into 56 new (51,9 %) and 52 follow-up patients (48,1 %). Furthermore another division can be made on the diagnosis – 73 Crohn’s and 35 ulcerative colitis patients participated in this study. All patients from the follow-up group were examined a second time two years after their first visit.
The fatigue score (FACIT version 4) was quantified and correlated with the inflammation in imaging. The imaging was taken from their dominated hand of the patients during the appointment – precisely MRI (1,5 T MRI Magneton Avanto System, Siemens, Erlangen). Various scores (HBI, pMS, BASDAI, ASDAS, BASFI, BASMI, MASES, BAS-G, FACIT, HAQ-DI, SF-36) had an impact on the statistical valuation. Laboratory parameters such as rheumatologic ones or parameters of the bone metabolism were determined. Especially inflammation parameters (CRP, ESG) and also ASDAS-CRP were important for the statistic calculation.
Results
The first hypothesis (correlation between fatigue score and inflammation signs in imaging) shows no correlation between fatigue and inflammation signs in the imaging (mild non significant correlation for enthesitis F(1,63) = 2.244, p = .139). Furthermore a significant correlation between ASDAS-CRP and Fatigue Score was found (ASDASCRP: r = -0.476, p < 0.01, n = 80 and ASDAS-BSG: r = -0.441, p < 0.01, n = 80). Considering the correlation between inflammation in imaging and DAS-28 score, this study can show a decent association in synovitis and tenosynovitis to the DAS-28 score (synovitis: F(1) = 4.100, p = 0.046 and tenosynovitis: T(18.709) = 2.874, p = .010). Furthermore the differences of ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease to the imaging and clinical signs of inflammation were analyzed. The statistical calculation reveals a significant disparity between both diseases (t(103.946) = 2.261, p = .026). Patients with Crohn’s disease have significant higher CRP parameters than patients with ulcerative colitis. Finally the study set up a comparison between new patients and follow-up patients on the basis of laboratory parameters, clinical assessment and imaging. In this case we assumed an improvement of the parameters and outcomes in the group of follow-ups. No statistical significance could be revealed.
Conclusions
On the basis of this findings we were not able to show an direct association between inflammation caused by IBD and the fatigue score. Merely a non-significant trend exists for inflammation and fatigue score. Additional studies with a greater number of cases, about the impact of initiation and changing therapy and stronger connection to the follow-up patients would be desirable.





