Clinical characteristics of inflammatory bowel disease in Thailand: a 16 years review.

OBJECTIVE

Inflammatory bowel disease is an uncommon gastrointestinal problem in Asia. Recently, there have been many reports from Japan and India demonstrating a higher incidence of this disease entity in this region. To date, there has been only one report from Thailand regarding clinical manifestation of ulcerative colitis. However, information regarding Crohn 's disease has never been demonstrated.

MATERIAL AND METHOD

The authors retrospectively reviewed clinical data on both ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn's disease (CD) during a 16 year period from the medical records of King Chulalongkorn Memorial Hospital, one of the main referral centers in Thailand.

RESULTS

There were 55 patients diagnosed as inflammatory bowel disease. Of these, 45 were diagnosed as UC and the rest were CD. Mean age of UC and CD patients was 32 and 40.5 years respectively. The authors did not find any significant relationship between smoking and colonic cancer in these patients. The main presentations of UC patients were mucous bloody diarrhea and watery diarrhea whereas watery diarrhea, fever and weight loss were the main presentations of patients with CD. There were fistulas in 2 CD patients. In addition, oral ulcer and panuveitis were diagnosed in 2 different CD patients. One UC patient had PSC (primary sclerosing cholangitis) and another had pyoderma gangrenosum. The majority of UCpresented as pancolitis (46.7%) while ileocolic involvement was more common in CD (60%).

CONCLUSION

In Thailand, UC is more common than CD whereas disease involvement is more localized to ileocolic region in CD than UC. Similar to Western countries, both UC and CD are presented at relatively young age.