Ouni, A. El

Background and Aims: Sarcopenia (SP) is increasingly recognized as a poor prognostic factor for patients with Crohn’s disease (CD). We aimed to use radiographically-measured SP to determine a disease-specific definition and measure its association with CD-related outcomes. Methods: This retrospective study included adults with CD seen at our outpatient tertiary center between 2019 and 2021 who underwent a CT scan within 3 months of visit. Using axial cross-sectional measurements at the L3 vertebral level, skeletal muscle area was indexed to height to derive skeletal muscle index (SMI). Demographics, comorbidities, CD phenotype, and outcomes, including hospitalization at 1 year, were analyzed in univariate and multivariate models. Results: One hundred twenty-four patients with CD were included, with a mean age of 52.2±16.6 years and 53.2% (66/124) women. Overall, 33.1% (41/124) had SP based on sex-specific cutoffs with men representing 75.6% (31/41) of the sarcopenic population. In bivariate analysis, patients with SP had a higher likelihood of hospitalization (43.9% vs. 22.9% for non-SP, P =0.02) and penetrating CD phenotype (20.0% vs. 2.3% for non-SP, P <0.05). On multivariate regression, higher SMI was associated with decreased hospitalization, with each 10-unit increase in SMI conferring 0.54 lower odds (OR: 0.54 [95% CI: 0.32-0.92], P =0.02). Patients with higher SMI trended towards lower use of biologics (OR: 0.70 [95% CI: 0.45-1.09], P =0.12). Our novel SP definition derived from an IBD population performed similarly to definitions from the literature. Conclusion: Our study demonstrates the application of an automated algorithm for the quantification of body composition based on CT scan in patients with CD. SP and low SMI were associated with increased hospitalization at 1 year.

18 Background: Studies have shown that African Americans (AA) are at increased risk for Colorectal Cancer (CRC) compared to other groups. Despite advancements in CRC screening modalities, few studies have investigated disparities in CRC screening among this vulnerable population. Methods: We performed a retrospective review of patients of age 45 or older who were seen in Family Medicine (FM), Internal Medicine (IM), or Gastroenterology (GI) between January 1, 2015 and December 31, 2021 at the Mayo Clinic. Information was collected regarding patient characteristics (age, sex, Charlson comorbidity score, race), and outcomes (whether a Cologuard test was ordered on the same day as the initial appointment, and whether the patient underwent a colonoscopy within 1 year after the initial appointment). Categorical variables were summarized with number and percentage of patients. Outcomes were compared between race groups (Caucasian, AA, Asian, Other) using unadjusted and multivariable logistic regression models. Multivariable models were adjusted for age, sex, and Charlson comorbidity score. Odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were estimated. P-values <0.05 were considered as statistically significant, and all statistical tests were two-sided. Results: Overall, 558,078 were included for analysis and 14,607 (2.6%) were AA. Overall, AA patients for less likely to have Cologuard ordered compared to Caucasians (OR=0.62, p<0.001), notably driven by patient seen in the FM group (OR=0.54, p<0.001) and no statistically significant difference was observed in the IM and GI groups (p=0.055 and p=0.43, respectively). Notably, compared to Caucasian patients, Asian patients were overall more likely to have Cologuard ordered (OR=1.23, p=0.003). In multivariable analysis assessing the likelihood of having a colonoscopy performed within 1 year of the initial appointment, the likelihood of a colonoscopy within 1 year of initial clinic visit was significantly lower for AA compared to Caucasian patients (OR=0.50, p=0.028). This difference was strongest in FM patients (OR=0.26, p=0.022) and was not significant for IM (OR=0.67, p=0.37) or GI (OR=2.31, p=0.25). Conclusions: In this study, we found that AA ethnicity is associated with reduced likelihood of having Cologuard ordered compared to Caucasian patients. Furthermore, AA patients were less likely to have colonoscopy ordered within 1 year of initial visit clinic visit among the overall cohort, highlighting important disparities in CRC screening among this vulnerable patient population notably for those seen in the FM group. Future studies are needed to assess other barriers for CRC screening in this population.

INTRODUCTION: The purpose of this study was to find out whether dissemination of gastroenterology and hepatology (GI) research on social media networks correlates with citation count at 5 years. METHODS: We correlated the Altmetric Attention Score with Web of Science citation counts at 5 years for scholarly work published in the 10 highest impact factor GI journals in 2014. RESULTS: In 4,026 analyzed items, the correlation ( r ) between Altmetric Attention Score and citations at 5 years was 0.62 ( P < 0.001), representing strong correlation. Twitter was the platform with the strongest correlation with citations. DISCUSSION: Social media attention garnered by GI scholarly work strongly correlates with the number of citations at 5 years.