Meta‐analysis: mortality in Crohn’s disease

SUMMARY Aim To perform a meta‐analysis is of published literature reporting standardized mortality ratios (SMR) for Crohn’s patients from 1970 to date. Methods Medline search identified relevant papers. Exploding references identified additional papers. When two papers reviewed mortality of one patient group at different times, the later publication was used. Results Of 13 papers identified, three studies reported SMR below 1.0, two others had confidence intervals including 1.0. All other studies reported mortality higher than the general population. Meta‐analysis using a random effects model shows the pooled estimate for SMR in Crohn’s disease is 1.52 (95% CI: 1.32 to 1.74 [P