Inflammatory Bowel Diseases: focus on epidemiology

The worldwide incidence and prevalence of Inflammatory Bowel Diseases (IBD) continues to increase, recent studies showing a future global spread of Inflammatory Bowel Diseases. Epidemiological data coming for Romania are scarce. The aim is to describe epidemiological features of Inflammatory Bowel Diseases in an adult population in the South-East side of Romania. The retrospective and descriptive study included 128 patients: group 1=Crohn’s Disease (CD) (79), group 2=Ulcerative Colitis (UC) (46) and group 3=Unclassified Colitis (Unclassified C) (3). We calculated the prevalence of Inflammatory Bowel Diseases in Constanţa in 2016. The phenotypic distribution was: 62% with Crohn’s Disease, 36% with Ulcerative Colitis and 3 patients with Unclassified Colitis. Crohn’s Disease: The prevalence was 0.11/100000 inhabitants. 51% were female and 49% were male. The age distribution showed a uniform model of the frequency of Crohn’s Disease in patients aged between 21 and 50 years. According to Montreal Classification, ileo-colonic involvement L3 was the most frequent in 47% and 60% patients presented inflammatory phenotype B1. 44% had intestinal complications. 9% had extraintestinal complications. 16.4% required surgical interventions. Ulcerative Colitis: The prevalence was 0.06/100000 inhabitants. We noticed a slight male predominance: 57% were male and 43% female. The age distribution showed a bimodal peak of incidence in patients aged between 21-30 years and 41-50 years. The most common disease extension was left colitis E2 in 47% cases. One patient had an enterovesical fistula. Extraintestinal complications were not reported in this group. No patient required surgical intervention. Unclassified Colitis: 3 male patients with ages between 31-50 years were diagnosed with Unclassified Colitis. Complications or need for surgery were not reported in this group. We noticed the predominance of Crohn’s Disease in our region while in other parts of Romania Ulcerative Colitis is predominant. We suppose that the predominance of Crohn’s Disease in Dobrogea can be due to environmental factors, diet or ethnics, but additional epidemiological studies to define better the association with environmental factors and risk factors for Crohn Disease or Ulcerative Colitis in our region are needed.