Association between Carotid Intima-Media Thickness and Inflammatory Bowel Disease: Systematic Literature Review

Atherosclerosis is involved in inflammatory diseases, and inflammation can be a valuable predictor of cardiovascular disease. On the other hand, an increase in intima-media thickness (IMT) is usually considered as a primary marker of atherosclerotic lesions. Hence, measurement of IMT may be useful for early detection of atherosclerosis in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). The aim of this study was to systematically review the literature in which the IMT had been evaluated as diagnostic marker for the detection of atherosclerosis in patients with IBD.
A systematic literature search was performed in PubMed, Scopus, and Google scholar using the following search method ((inflammatory bowel disease OR IBD OR Crohn’s disease OR ulcerative colitis)) AND (intima OR intima media thickness OR intimal medial thickness OR IMT OR carotid intima-media thickness OR CIMT) to evaluate the association between IBD and IMT. After collecting the eligible documents, the desired data were extracted and analyzed.
Of total 278 collected documents, only 14 relevant articles with total 1333 participants including 720 patients with IBD and 613 healthy controls were included for data assessment. The results of the articles did not support significant association between IMT and IBD. However, in some studies it was shown that IMT was elevated in patients with IBD.
The results of this survey showed that there was no significant difference in IMT between the patients with IBD and healthy control groups; therefore, IMT cannot be considered as a predictor of atherosclerosis and future cardiovascular events in patients with IBD.