Lee DW, et al. - The factors affecting diagnostic delay and outcomes of diagnostic delay in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) were examined in this study. Among patients with Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC), a diagnostic delay was correlated with poor outcomes, like increased intestinal surgery risks.

• A total of 165 patients with Crohn’s disease (CD) and 130 patients with ulcerative colitis (UC) were retrospectively studied.
• The patients were diagnosed and had follow-up durations > 6 mo at Korea University Ansan Hospital from January 2000 to December 2015.
• The physicians defined a diagnostic delay as the time interval between the first symptom onset and IBD diagnosis in which the 76th to 100th percentiles of patients were diagnosed.

• In the patients with CD and UC, the median diagnostic time interval was 6.2 and 2.4 mo, respectively.
• Perianal discomfort before diagnosis (OR = 10.2, 95%CI: 1.93-54.3, P = 0.006) was associated with diagnostic delays in patients with CD among the initial symptoms.
• However, no clinical factor was associated with diagnostic delays in patients with UC.
• Factors associated with increased intestinal surgery risks in CD were diagnostic delays, stricturing type, and penetrating type were (OR = 2.54, 95%CI: 1.06-6.09; OR = 4.44, 95%CI: 1.67-11.8; OR = 3.79, 95%CI: 1.14-12.6, respectively).
• The only factor associated with increased intestinal surgery risks in UC was a diagnostic delay (OR = 6.81, 95%CI: 1.12-41.4).