Quezada SM, et al. – Physicians designed this study to evaluate the relationship between smoking and disease–specific quality of life over time in patients with Crohn’s disease (CD) at a tertiary referral center. In patients with CD, smoking had a negative effect on disease activity and quality of life. Prospects of improved disease activity and quality of life needed to be introduced as an additional incentive to encourage smoking cessation in patients with CD.

• From July 2004 to July 2009, the physicians performed this retrospective cohort study in patients with CD identified from the University of Maryland, Baltimore, Institutional Review Board-approved University of Maryland School of Medicine Inflammatory Bowel Disease Program database.
• They classified smoking status as current, former, and never.
• They categorized age as <40 years, 40-59 years, and ≥60 years.
• They measured index visit disease activity and quality of life with the Harvey-Bradshaw index, and the Short Inflammatory Bowel Disease Questionnaire (SIBDQ).
• They used repeated measures linear regression to evaluate the association between smoking and quality of life over time after adjustment for confounding variables.

• The physicians included 608 patients.
• Out of them, 42% were male; 80% were Caucasian; 22% were current smokers; 24% were former smokers; and 54% were never smokers.
• In all patients, adjusted Harvey-Bradshaw index scores declined over time, but current smokers had consistently higher scores.
• At index visit, never smokers had higher mean SIBDQ scores compared to former and current smokers (P<0.0001) after adjustment for sex, age, and disease duration; all increased over time but SIBDQ scores for never smokers remained consistently highest.