Dr Kochar discusses her presentation at the recent American College of Gastroenterology scientific meeting on the special concerns of older female patients with IBD. 

Bharati Kochar, MD, is a gastroenterologist and inflammatory bowel disease specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts.

TRANSCRIPT:

Hello. My name is Bharati Kochar. I'm a gastroenterologist and inflammatory bowel disease specialist at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. A few weeks ago, I was honored to be part of a session on women's health in IBD at the American College of Gastroenterology's postgraduate course.

Women's health is certainly a very special topic. Women comprise half the population, and yet they're not often proportionately represented in studies. It's very important to discuss this very specifically. In this session, I covered the end of life spectrum, discussing menopause and caring for the older woman with IBD.

I discussed some of the data regarding the impact of menopause in IBD, which is generally sparse. It does seem that women who are diagnosed with IBD at older ages, like in their 40s, seem to have menopause maybe 1 to 2 years earlier than women who were diagnosed in their younger ages, in their 20s or so.

This has implications for things like screening for cardiovascular disease and osteoporosis. I also presented sparse data regarding the use of hormone replacement therapy in women with IBD, and the risks of potential future Crohn's disease after using hormone replacement therapy or HRT.

Because women have longer life expectancies, the older people that we see with IBD tend to be women. I highlighted the importance of being involved with women's health at older ages, including things like screening for osteoporosis, guiding PCPs on that, since inflammatory bowel disease does impact the screening recommendations.

I discussed some of the known safety and efficacy data for many of the medications that we have to use to treat IBD at older ages. What I hope that people got out of the talk after all of these details was the importance of interdisciplinary care when caring for older people and older women.

Things like speaking with gynecologists, primary care doctors, oncologists, and endocrinologists. As with all of my talks on older people, I hope that I emphasized the importance of avoiding steroids in the treatment of older women specifically with IBD. I was honored to be part of this panel. I hope that it was helpful.