Author response: oral contraceptives and Crohn's disease

We appreciate the suggestion by Dr Rhodes to further evaluate the link between oral contraceptive (OC) use and risk of Crohn's disease according to the anatomical location of disease involvement.1 We agree that a plausible mechanism for the link between OC use and risk of Crohn's disease may be through the effect of oestrogen on subacute thrombosis, leading to the development of multifocal ischaemia and infarction of the colon that manifests as colitis. In our study,2 we documented 315 incident cases of Crohn's disease through 2007 in Nurses’ Health Study II (NHS II) and 2008 in NHS I. Among these cases, 141 (45%) were isolated colonic disease and 82 (26%) were ileal Crohn's disease. Compared with never users of OC, the multivariate-adjusted HRs of Crohn's disease confined to the ileum were 2.99 (95% CI 1.06 to 8.49) for current OC use and 1.46 (95% CI...
Source: Gut - Category: Gastroenterology Authors: Tags: PostScript Source Type: research