The Burden of Inflammatory Bowel Disease in Europe.

AbstractInflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) are chronic disabling gastrointestinal disorders impacting every aspect of the affected individual's life and account for substantial costs to the health care system and society. New epidemiological data suggest that the incidence and prevalence of the diseases are increasing and medical therapy and disease management have changed significantly in the last decade. An estimated 2.5–3million people in Europe are affected by IBD, with a direct healthcare cost of 4.6–5.6bn Euros/year. Therefore, the aim of this review is to describe the burden of IBD in Europe by discussing the latest epidemiological data, the disease course and risk for surgery and hospitalization, mortality and cancer risks, as well as the economic aspects, patients' disability and work impairment

Inflammatory bowel diseases: A disease (s) of modern times? Is incidence still increasing?

Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) are a heterogeneous group of diseases, not always easy to diagnose, even more difficult to classify, and diagnostic criteria are not always uniform. Well done population-based studies are not abundant, and so comparisons among different geographical areas or populations are not always very reliable. In this article, we have reviewed epidemiological studies available on the world’s population while making a critical review of published data