Prevalence and patient awareness of inflammatory bowel disease in Kazakhstan: a cross-sectional study

Background/Aims: There has been a paucity of published data on the epidemiology of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) in Central Asia and Kazakhstan. Therefore, we aimed to study IBD prevalence and patient awareness among adults in Kazakhstan. Methods: The cross-sectional study was carried out among subjects of both sexes aged 18 years and older using IBD Alert Questionnaire (CalproQuest), single fecal calprotectin test, and endoscopy with biopsy to verify IBD from January to December 2017, across regions of Kazakhstan. All participants were included in the study after providing informed consent. Results: Out of 115,556 subjects, there were 128 confirmed IBD cases, in which 36 Crohn's disease (CD) and 92 ulcerative colitis (UC) cases identified. The age and sex-adjusted IBD prevalence were 113.9 (95% confidence interval [CI], 69.0-158.9) per 100,000 population. The age- and sex-adjusted prevalence for UC were 84.4 (95% CI, 44.8-123.9) and for CD were 29.5 (95% CI, 8.2-50.9) per 100,000 population. Conclusions: This is the first report on the prevalence of IBD with a verified diagnosis in the Central Asia and could be used to better plan and allocate healthcare resources for IBD management program.