The epidemiology and prevalence of Ulcerative colitis in the South of India

Abstract

Ulcerative colitis is considered frequent in majority of European and North American population and exceptional in most of the developing Asian countries. There is a dearth of reported data from South India on the incidence of the disease and its prevalence. Hence the present study was designed to estimate the prevalence of ulcerative colitis in a tertiary care hospital of Hyderabad, South India. The study population consisted of 157 Ulcerative colitis and 204 healthy subjects. All subjects were interviewed by means of a questionnaire for general demographical details and socioeconomic conditions, health related quality of life and history of UC. Patients were categorized based on disease severity; moderate: 95, and severe: 62 and disease manifestation: 73 (46.5%) pancolitis, 60 (38.2%) left-sided colitis and 24 (15.3%) had proctosigmoiditits. Disease prevalence was high in patients of