Treatment guidelines in inflammatory bowel disease: the Japanese perspectives

The number of inflammatory bowel disease patients has been increasing in Japan and the demand for clinical practical guidelines emerged. A set of clinical practice guidelines for ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease were thus published in 2006 and 2011, respectively. Their English versions were then published in 2000 and 2012, respectively. These guidelines aim to provide appropriate clinical indicators to Japanese practitioners to improve the outcomes of inflammatory bowel disease patients. The guidelines are based on global literature-based evidence as well as evidence from Japan. The Japanese guidelines were developed based on the existing evidence with integration of the experts' consensus. The criteria for recommendation grade were also determined by the level of evidence as well as by the experts' consensus. It is a distinct feature of the Japanese guidelines to disclose this process explicitly. This recommendation rating is thus useful to fill the gap between evidence and daily clinical practice. Since the Japanese guidelines are primarily based on global literature-based evidence, most of the clinical indicators in them are consistent with those in other guidelines from the Western world. Meanwhile, there are some distinctly different statements in the Japanese guidelines reflecting Japanese standard clinical practice, evidence, and the opinions of Japanese experts.