Objectives:

In Latin America, inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is rare, and information about it is limited. This article describes characteristics of IBD patients in a gastroenterology unit at a high-level clinic in Cali, Colombia.

Materials and methods:

This is a descriptive study of patients diagnosed with Crohn’s disease (CD) or ulcerative colitis (UC) at the Clínica Fundación Valle de Lili between January 2011 and December 2015. Statistical analysis was performed with SPSS version 19. Medians and interquartile ranges were calculated for numerical variables. Frequencies were calculated for qualitative variables.

Results:

The 416 participants included 115 with CD and 301 with UC. Of the total cases, 41% were classified as mild, 23.5% as moderate and 35.3% as severe. Surgery was performed in 24 patients (9.0%) with UC and 53 (46.1%) with CD. CD was most frequently managed with biologicals (32.2%), followed by immunomodulators (27.8%), steroids (20%) and 5-ASA (11.3%). The most frequent treatment for UC was 5-ASA (84.8%), but 32.19% received steroids, 24.6% received azathioprine and 15.9% received biologicals.

Conclusions:

Early diagnosis remains a challenge. The severity of UC but not CD in the patients studied was less than that reported elsewhere in the world. The difference could be related to diagnostic delay. The use of biologicals was close to that reported in the first world. It is difficult to determine if lower surgery rates are due to better clinical response or to difficult access to these interventions.

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