Retrospective Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Jan 28, 2015; 21(4): 1197-1206
Published online Jan 28, 2015. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v21.i4.1197
Inflammatory bowel disease in an underdeveloped region of Northeastern Brazil
José Miguel Luz Parente, Claudio Saddy Rodrigues Coy, Viriato Campelo, Mírian Perpétua Palha Dias Parente, Leonardo Araújo Costa, Renata Mendes da Silva, Celso Stephan, José Murilo Robilotta Zeitune
José Miguel Luz Parente, Viriato Campelo, Center for Health Sciences, Federal University of Piaui (Universidade Federal do Piauí - UFPI), Teresina, Piauí 64049-550, Brazil
Claudio Saddy Rodrigues Coy, Department of Surgery, School of Medical Sciences, State University of Campinas (Universidade Estadual de Campinas), Campinas, São Paulo 13083-970, Brazil
Mírian Perpétua Palha Dias Parente, Center of Health Sciences, State University of Piaui (Universidade Estadual do Piauí - UESPI), Teresina, Piauí 64001-280, Brazil
Leonardo Araújo Costa, Renata Mendes da Silva, Federal University of Piaui (Universidade Federal do Piauí - UFPI), Teresina, Piauí 64049-550, Brazil
Celso Stephan, Department of Public Health, School of Medical Sciences, State University of Campinas (Universidade Estadual de Campinas - Unicamp), Campinas, São Paulo 13083-970, Brazil
José Murilo Robilotta Zeitune, Department of Internal Medicine, School of Medical Sciences, State University of Campinas (Universidade Estadual de Campinas - Unicamp), Campinas, São Paulo 13083-970, Brazil
Author contributions: Parente JML, Coy CSR, Campelo V, Parente MPPD and Zeitune JMR designed the research and contributed equally to this work; Costa LA and da Silva RM collected the data; Stephan C analyzed the data; Parente JML wrote the paper.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: José Miguel Luz Parente, MD, PhD, Professor of Gastroenterology, Center for Health Sciences, Federal University of Piaui (Universidade Federal do Piauí - UFPI), Teresina, Piauí 64049-550, Brazil. jparente@ufpi.edu.br
Telephone: +55-86-99813603 Fax: +55-86-32372060
Received: April 3, 2014
Peer-review started: April 4, 2014
First decision: May 13, 2014
Revised: July 9, 2014
Accepted: August 13, 2014
Article in press: August 28, 2014
Published online: January 28, 2015
Core Tip

Core tip: This study addressed the demographic characteristics and clinical phenotypes of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) patients in Northeastern Brazilian, where living conditions are poor and there is a lack of data on this subject. Over the last two decades, there was a noted increase in the frequency of IBD in the study area, although there was considerable delay in disease diagnosis throughout the study period. There was a predominance of patients with ulcerative colitis, but there was no difference between males and females in terms of disease frequency. Most individuals were aged below 40 years, had miscegenated ethnic characteristics, and received low annual incomes.