ULCERATIVE COLITIS AND CROHN DISEASE IN CHILDREN – AN EVOLVING PROBLEM IN ROMANIA

Revista Romana de PEDIATRIE | Volumul LXIII, Nr. 2, An 2014

ISSN 1454-0398 | e-ISSN 2069-6175
ISSN-L 1454-0398
DOI: 10.37897/RJP

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Cristina Becheanu, Gabriela Lesanu, Roxana Smadeanu and Iulia Tincu

ABSTRACT

Objectives. In the past few years we observed an increase in the number of patients with inflammatory bowel disease. We aimed to determine the epidemiology of this pathology among children in Romania over a 10 years period.

Matherial and methods. The survey was conducted in Pediatric Gastroenterology Departments in Bucharest. We selected patients beeing carred for inflammatory bowel disease in 2011. A similar study, performed 10 years ago in 2001, reported the same epidemiologic characteristics and comparative data were available.

Results. In 2001 we report 74 cases of inflammatory bowel disease, while there were 21 cases mentioned in 2001. We identified 35 cases of Crohn disease (47.29%) and 39 patients with ulcerative colitis (52.7%). The previous study reported 17 (81%) and 4 (19%), respectively. The mean age of onset of symptoms is 10.2 while in 2001 this was 13.2 years.

Conclusions. Inflammatory bowel disease has tripled in the last 10 years. Ulcerative colitis is still the most frequent form but we report a growing number of cases with Crohn disease.

Keywords: inflammatory bowel disease, epidemiology, age at onset

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