Clinical features and long-term prognosis of Crohn's disease in Korea

Recent studies have suggested that the clinical characteristics and genetic background of Crohn's disease (CD) patients differ between Asian and Caucasian individuals. However, the clinical features and course of CD in Asian patients remain unclear. Therefore, we investigated the clinical features and long-term prognosis of CD in a Korean population.

We retrospectively analyzed 278 Korean patients with CD first diagnosed at the Asan Medical Center between March 1991 and February 2007.

The male-to-female ratio was 2.2:1 and the median age at diagnosis was 23 years. The median duration of follow-up was 71 months (range, 1-210 months). At diagnosis, 187 patients (67.3%) had disease in both small bowel and colon, 68 (24.4%) had isolated small bowel disease, and 23 (8.3%) had isolated colonic disease. The number of patients with stricturing or penetrating behavior as defined by the Montreal classification increased from 87 (31.3%) at diagnosis to 141 (50.7%) at final evaluation. One hundred and thirty patients (46.8%) experienced perianal fistulas before and/or after diagnosis of CD. A total of 71 patients (25.5%) underwent intestinal resection and the cumulative probability of intestinal resection after 1, 5, and 10 years was 15.5%, 25.0%, and 32.8%, respectively.

Korean CD patients differed from Western patients in gender distribution, disease location, and perianal fistula occurrence. Korean CD patients may also have better clinical courses than Western patients, as indicated by the lower intestinal resection rate.