Crohn's disease in the elderly.

Crohn's disease initially diagnosed after age 60 years

“…These findings suggest that Crohn's disease in the elderly is a far less extensive inflammatory disease process, especially compared to pediatric patients where the disease appears to be more clinically aggressive and extensive [3,4]. Moreover, the findings here confirm important observations in an earlier report by Fabricius et al [6] showing less extensive disease. Additional studies are needed to determine if ageing per se has a direct effect on the extent of involvement with this complex inflammatory process in Crohn's disease as well as the role of ageing in the localisation of the disease to different sites along the length of the gastrointestinal tract.…”

“…These results are consistent with the female-predominant pattern of Crohn's disease reported from other North American or European centres [5][6][7][8].…”

“…The duration of follow-up was at least 6 years or more for almost 50%, with a mean of 6.2 years (males, 5.2 years; females, 7.0 years). These either exceed or are similar to the recorded follow-up for more limited numbers of elderly-onset cohorts reported in other studies [5][6][7][8].…”

“…Prior retrospective studies described the clinical features of Crohn's disease in the elderly, although in some, elderly was defined as over age 50 years, or even age 40 years, and patient numbers were limited [5][6][7][8]. Even in Crohn's own experience of 530 patients, only 7 were seen after age 60 years [8].…”

Crohn's disease in the over-60 age group

“…However, most studies of older CD patients [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21] were conducted in referral centres and were therefore open to bias related to greater disease severity as compared to the overall population of older CD patients. A single population based study of CD in older patients has been reported [5].…”