Karolewska-Bochenek K, Lazowska-Przeorek I, Albrecht P et al. Digestion 2009;79:121–9.
The incidence of pediatric IBD in the Western world is increasing; however, the epidemiology of the disease in Eastern European countries is less certain. The aim of this study was to determine the incidence of new IBD among children in Poland between 2002 and 2004.
In this prospective, epidemiological study, patient records from the 24 pediatric gastroenterology centers serving the whole of Poland were reviewed for the years 2002–2004. There were 491 newly diagnosed patients with IBD aged <18 years during that time-period, giving an incidence rate of 2.7 per 100 000 children/year. Definite and probable cases were included in the calculations. The incidence rate of Crohn’s disease was 0.6 per 100 000 children/year, ulcerative colitis (UC) 1.3 per 100 000 children/year, and indeterminate colitis 0.8 per 100 000 children/year. The highest incidence rate was 5.2 per 100 000 children/year among 15–16-year-olds. More males than females were diagnosed with Crohn’s disease (p=0.012), whereas the sex ratio for UC and indeterminate colitis was 1. Hence, the incidence rate of IBD is lower in Poland than in Western countries but is similar to that of other Eastern European countries. The relatively lower incidence of Crohn’s disease is also different to that in Western countries, where Crohn’s disease has overtaken UC as the most frequent IBD in most pediatric populations.