Zaman Z, Majid Z. Inflammatory bowel disease in Pakistan: Low prevalence or underdiagnosis? World J Gastrointest Pharmacol Ther 2024; 15(6): 99226 [PMID: 39534522 DOI: 10.4292/wjgpt.v15.i6.99226]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Zain Majid, FCPS, MBBS, Assistant Professor, Senior Researcher, Department of Gastroenterology, Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation, Chand Bibi Road, Karachi 75500, Pakistan. zain88@hotmail.com
Research Domain of This Article
Gastroenterology & Hepatology
Article-Type of This Article
Letter to the Editor
Open-Access Policy of This Article
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/
World J Gastrointest Pharmacol Ther. Nov 5, 2024; 15(6): 99226 Published online Nov 5, 2024. doi: 10.4292/wjgpt.v15.i6.99226
Inflammatory bowel disease in Pakistan: Low prevalence or underdiagnosis?
Zubia Zaman, Zain Majid
Zubia Zaman, Dr. Ruth K. M. Pfau Civil Hospital Karachi, Civil Hospital Karachi, Karachi 74100, Sindh, Pakistan
Zain Majid, Department of Gastroenterology, Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation, Karachi 75500, Pakistan
Author contributions: Zaman Z wrote the initial manuscript; Majid Z wrote and edited the final draft.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (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: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Zain Majid, FCPS, MBBS, Assistant Professor, Senior Researcher, Department of Gastroenterology, Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation, Chand Bibi Road, Karachi 75500, Pakistan. zain88@hotmail.com
Received: July 17, 2024 Revised: August 8, 2024 Accepted: August 21, 2024 Published online: November 5, 2024 Processing time: 99 Days and 16 Hours
Abstract
Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) has a low prevalence in the Global South, including Pakistan. While genetics and gut flora, influenced by diet and the environment, can contribute to this, we are exploring the possibility of underdiagnosis. Lack of facilities trained in IBD, scarcity of medications, limited health insurance for specialist referral and the current epidemic of abdominal tuberculosis could be the cause. The increasing diagnosis of IBD among Pakistani immigrants and colorectal carcinoma among the young population might be the result of this. Timely referrals by primary care physicians to gastroenterologists, along with the growing use of newer technologies such as abdominal ultrasound for diagnosis can help mitigate the challenge of low or late diagnosis of this chronic condition.
Core Tip: We wanted to shed light on the low prevalence of inflammatory bowel disease in Pakistan, which is due to many factors; the main one being underdiagnosis. There is a need to incorporate newer diagnostic modalities along with educating the general physicians about the disease and when to refer these patients to specialists.
