Epidemiological Features of Inflammatory Bowel Disease in Khozestan

Abstract In order to determine several epidemiologic aspects of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), in the Khouzestan area, we conducted a retrospective, descriptive and cross-sectional, hospital-based and outpatient study. All subjects were studied for distribution of the various forms of IBD, age, sex, place of residence, familial aggregation, educational status, tobacco consumption and use of oral contraceptives. This study was crried out from 1st January 1999 to 30th December 2002. All patients who were diagnosed with IBD after admission to our department, well as those who were examined in our outpatient clinic and subsequently followed up were included in the present study. A detailed medical histroy was obtined and recoreded in a questrionaire. A total of 176 cases of IBD including, ulcerative colitis (166 cases), Crohn’s disease (8) and 2 with indetermined colitis were registered. The male-female ratio in UC was 1.07 and 1.6 in CD. Mean age at presentation was 38.6 ± 17.44 years (UC: 43.37 ± 17.55; CD: 33.98 ± 11.12). The frequency of disease in different races was Fars 62.5%, Lor 17 %, Arab 11.9 %, and Turk 2.8 %. Family history was found in 9%, and smoking in 13 %. Anatomical site was as follows: in UC: rectum(34) 20/4%, rectum and sigmoid(39) 23.4 %, left colitis (64)36.5 %, pancolitis(29)17.4 %; in CD: 25 % terminal ileum, 75 % restricted to the colon.Primary sclerosing cholangitis was encountered in(8) 4.8 % IBD patients, mostly in pancolitis(87.5 %). As in the other regions, the prevalence of UC exceeded CD in Khouzestan. The incidence of UC was slightly higher in female than in male. Complicated situations are infrequent in this group of patients. The rarity of extraintestinal manifestations and of colonic cancer is to be noted in spite of the relatively short period of study. We found that familial aggregation of the disease and smoking were similar to that reported from other studies.