Clinical, biological and epidemiological aspects of inflammatory bowel diseases in North-East Romania

Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) are chronic conditions of unknown etiology with increasing incidence in South-East Europe. The epidemiological characteristics, clinical, biological and endoscopic profiles are very different worldwide, with little data existing from Moldova region. This study aims to characterize IBD in North-East Romania from the mentioned points of view.

All patients with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis (UC) admitted to a tertiary hospital during a three year interval were retrospectively analyzed in terms of epidemiological characteristics. All IBD patients hospitalized during 2010 were complexly analyzed by noting the type and form of disease, the biological picture, the clinical and endoscopic scores.

UC represents 77% of all cases (one of the highest values of the recent studies). Age at onset is higher in the studied region, with the average over 40 years. In UC the forms of severity and extension are uniformly distributed, but in Crohn's disease there is a predominance of colonic forms and the number of complicated cases is high - over 50%. The parameters with the best correlation with endoscopic scores were the clinical Mayo score for UC, serum C-reactive protein and fibrinogen.

There is a definite predominance of UC in North-East Romania, but Crohn's disease tends to present an increased number of complications. The age of onset of the two diseases is high. There is a good correlation between the clinical and biological scores with endoscopic activity, but without this assessment inflammation may be underestimated. Systematic exploration of the small bowel may increase detection of ileal manifestations.