LB081 - DOES CYTOPHOBIA ALWAYS TRIGGER MALNUTRITION IN IBD PATIENTS?

LB081

DOES CYTOPHOBIA ALWAYS TRIGGER MALNUTRITION IN IBD PATIENTS?

S. OZLU¹, S. ANDAC^1,*, S. POTUROGLU²

¹Istanbul Sabahattin Zaim University, ²University of Health Sciences, Istanbul, Türkiye

Rationale: To reduce symptoms, patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) develop various cytophobias based on their own experiences, which can cause malnutrition.  In this study, we tried to examine IBD patients' cytophobia, and the relationship between MUST score.

Methods: 225  IBD patients willing to participate in the study, aged between 18 and 65 years old, who were followed up at the Gastroenterology Department outpatient clinic of Istanbul Çam and Sakura City Hospital between November 2023 and May 2024,  without following any special diet program, eg, lactose/gluten free diet, were included. Patients' malnutrition status was assessed by the Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool MUST. Analyses were performed using SPSS version 27 (IBM Inc., Chicago, IL, USA).

Results: Among patients with ulcerative colitis (UC), 40.2% (n=49) experienced cytophobia due to disease symptoms. Similarly, patients with Crohn’s disease (CD) 44.7% (n=46) reported cytophobia related to their disease symptoms. 

MUST score of the UC patients ranged between 0-2, and the MUST score of the CD patients ranged from 0-3. The average MUST score is 0.17±0.51, 0.29±0.69, for UC and CD patients respectively. 

There was no difference in MUST scores between the cytophobia and non-cytophobia groups in UC patients (U=1643.5, P=0.171). Similarly, there was no difference in MUST scores between these groups in CD patients (U=459, P=0.895).

Conclusion: In this study, cytophobia was common in UK and CD patients, but no difference was observed between the MUST scores of patients with and without cytophobia. 

This result may be related to the patients' diagnosis period and nutritional knowledge levels. However, the consequences of nutritional deficiencies that may be caused by cytophobia should not be ignored in these patients. Because of that individual nutritional counseling was crucial in stabilizing nutritional status since nutrient deficiency could ensue if substitute items were not added to the diet.

Disclosure of Interest: None declared