METHODS: Patients with CD who were seen in 2001-2003 in the University of Malaya Medical Centre (UMMC) were enrolled in this study. Prevalence of disease was calculated for the group as a whole and by race with hospital admissions per ethnic group as the denominator.
RESULTS: Thirty-four patients were diagnosed to have CD. Basic demographic data of patients; male:female 17:17; mean age 29.1 years (+/-13.5 years); ethnic group: Malays 5 (14.7%), Chinese 12 (35.3%) and Indians 17 (50%).Twenty-six (76.5%) were diagnosed under the age of 40 and 8 (23.5%) were diagnosed over the age of 40. Location of the disease was as follows:ileocolonic 13 (38.2%), terminal ileum only 9 (26.5%), colon only 8 (23.5%), and upper gastrointestinal 4 (11.8%). Sixteen (47.1%) had penetrating disease, 9 (26.5%) had stricturing disease and 9 (26.5%) had non-penetrating and non-stricturing disease. The hospital admission prevalence of CD was 26.0 overall, Indians 52.6, Chinese 6.9, and Malays 9.3 per 10(5) admissions per ethnic group. The difference between Indians and Malays: [OR 5.67 (1.97, 17.53) P<0.001] was statistically significant but not between the Indians and the Chinese [OR 1.95 (0.89, 4.35) P=0.700]. The difference between the Chinese and the Malays was also not statistically significant. [OR 2.90 (0.95, 9.42) P=0.063].
CONCLUSION: The clinical presentation of CD is similar to the Western experience. Although the overall prevalence is low,there appears to be a clear racial predominance among the Indians.
SUBJECTS/METHODS: Nested within the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC-IBD), incident UC and CD cases and matched controls where included. At recruitment, participants completed validated food frequency and lifestyle questionnaires. Alcohol consumption was classified as either: non-use, former, light (⩽0.5 and 1 drink per week), below the recommended limits (BRL) (⩽1 and 2 drinks per day), moderate (⩽2.5 and 5 drinks per day), or heavy use (>2.5 and >5 drinks per day) for women and men, respectively; and was expressed as consumption at enrolment and during lifetime. Conditional logistic regression was applied adjusting for smoking and education, taking light users as the reference.
RESULTS: Out of 262 451 participants in six countries, 198 UC incident cases/792 controls and 84 CD cases/336 controls were included. At enrolment, 8%/27%/32%/23%/11% UC cases and 7%/29%/40%/19%/5% CD cases were: non-users, light, BRL, moderate and heavy users, respectively. The corresponding figures for lifetime non-use, former, light, BRL, moderate and heavy use were: 3%/5%/23%/44%/19%/6% and 5%/2%/25%/44%/23%/1% for UC and CD cases, respectively. There were no associations between any categories of alcohol consumption and risk of UC or CD in the unadjusted and adjusted odds ratios.
CONCLUSION: There was no evidence of associations between alcohol use and the odds of developing either UC or CD.
METHODS: Within the prospective EPIC (European Prospective Investigation into Cancer) study, we set up a nested matched case-control study among 366,351 participants with inflammatory bowel disease data, including 256 incident cases of UC and 117 of CD, and 4 matched controls per case. Dietary intake was recorded at baseline from validated food frequency questionnaires. Incidence rate ratios of developing UC and CD were calculated for quintiles of the Mediterranean diet score and a posteriori dietary patterns produced by factor analysis.
RESULTS: No dietary pattern was associated with either UC or CD risks. However, when excluding cases occurring within the first 2 years after dietary assessment, there was a positive association between a "high sugar and soft drinks" pattern and UC risk (incidence rate ratios for the fifth versus first quintile, 1.68 [1.00-2.82]; Ptrend = 0.02). When considering the foods most associated with the pattern, high consumers of sugar and soft drinks were at higher UC risk only if they had low vegetables intakes.
CONCLUSIONS: A diet imbalance with high consumption of sugar and soft drinks and low consumption of vegetables was associated with UC risk. Further studies are needed to investigate whether microbiota alterations or other mechanisms mediate this association.
METHODS: This was a retrospective study in which all CD patients seen in two tertiary referral hospitals in Malaysia were recruited. Patients were stratified into two cohorts; cohort 1 was patients diagnosed from year 1991 to 2000 and cohort 2 was patients diagnosed from year 2001 to 2010. These time cohorts were selected based on initial availability of biologic agents in Malaysia in year 2000. Details of demography, disease location, medications and cumulative surgical rates over 7 years were recorded.
RESULTS: A total of 207 patients were recruited: 70 from cohort 1 and 137 from cohort 2. Differences seen in terms of disease location, phenotype, and use of immunomodulatory therapy between the two cohorts were not significant. Patients who were ever exposed to biologics were significantly different between the two cohorts, approximately two times higher at 35.8% (n = 49) in cohort 2, and 18.6% (n = 13) in cohort 1, p = 0.011. There was a significant reduction in the 7-year cumulative intestinal surgical rates between cohort 1 and cohort 2, from 21.4% (n = 15) to 10.2% (n = 14), p = 0.028. However, there was no statistically significant difference in biologic exposure between those who underwent surgery and those who did not.
CONCLUSIONS: There has been a significant reduction in intestinal surgical rates for Crohn's disease over the last two decades but does not appear to be associated with the increased use of biologics.
METHODS: Hospital Sultanah Aminah, Johor Bahru, is the only public hospital in Johor with a Gastroenterology service. Data on all existing and new IBD patients managed by the Gastroenterology Unit in 2016 were collected. Incidence and prevalence of IBD in 2016 were then calculated based on the estimated population of Johor and Johor Bahru.
RESULTS: Twenty-five new cases of IBD were diagnosed in 2016. Among the 25 cases, 13 cases were Crohn's disease (CD), 10 were ulcerative colitis (UC) and two were IBD Unclassified (IBDU). The crude incidence of IBD, CD, UC and IBDU were 0.68, 0.36, 0.27, and 0.05 per 100,000 population respectively. Ethnic Indians had the highest incidence of IBD at 4.21 followed by Malays and Chinese at 0.56 and 0.18 per 100,000 population respectively. A total of 156 IBD cases were captured. Amongst them, 85 cases were UC, 68 cases were CD and three cases were IBDU, hence the prevalence of IBD, UC, CD and IBDU were 4.27, 2.33, 1.86 and 0.08 per 100,000 population respectively. Similarly, Indians had the highest prevalence at 16.84, followed by Chinese at 4.06 and Malays at 3.44 per 100,000 population.
CONCLUSIONS: The incidence of IBD in Johor is comparable to that of a previous study in northern Peninsular Malaysia. The ethnicity preponderance is similar to the previous studies conducted in Malaysia.
METHODS: The patients studied consisted of 58 people with an established diagnosis of ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn's disease (CD) as determined by a combination of clinical, radiological, endoscopic and histological criteria. The patients were residents of a well-defined geographical area in the northern part of Singapore and had been referred to the single regional hospital. Epidemiological data including sex, age, ethnicity, family history and disease type and extent were collected from case records and patient interviews.
RESULTS: There were 37 UC and 21 CD patients. Of the patients with UC, 67.5% were Chinese, 13.5% were Malay and 19% were Indian. The CD group consisted of 81% Chinese, 9.5% Malay and 9.5% Indian patients. The study population from which the patients were drawn was approximately 0.5 million in size.
CONCLUSIONS: The overall prevalence of UC was 6 per 100,000 and of CD was 3.6 per 100,000 in Singapore. There were disproportionately more Indians suffering from UC, with a prevalence of 16.2 per 100,000 in comparison with six per 100,000 for Chinese and seven per 100 000 for Malays. The relative risk of UC in Indians is 2.9-fold greater than for the Chinese (CI= 1.25-6.7) which was statistically significant. This trend was not seen for CD.