Ulcerative colitis in China: Retrospective analysis of 3100 hospitalized patients

Abstract

This retrospective study analyzed the clinical characteristics of hospitalized patients with ulcerative colitis (UC) in China.A total of 3100 hospitalized patients with UC admitted to 23 hospitals in China from 1990 to 2003 were retrospectively investigated and their clinical characteristics were analyzed.A male/female ratio of 1.34/1.00 was found in the 3100 patients, who had an average age of 44 +/- 15.1 years at diagnosis. Of the patients, 2972 (95.9%) had active UC. Active UC was mild in 35.4% of the 2972 patients, moderate in 42.9% and severe in 21.7%. Of the 2726 patients with a description of their lesion extent, 14.8% had proctitis, 26.4% had proctosigmoiditis, 25.0% had left-sided colitis, 6.3% had extensive colitis, 25.8% had pancolitis and 1.7% had regional colitis. The predominant complaints of the patients with UC were bloody diarrhea (48.2%), abdominal pain (67.3%) and mucus stools (58.4%). Among these patients, 13.6% had extraintestinal manifestations and 9.6% had related complications. A differential diagnosis was difficult to make, as there were 19 varieties of the disease; infectious enterocolitis had a misdiagnosis rate of 22.9% before admission. The main medications for UC in China were aminosalicylates (66.8%) and steroids (42.8%). Only 94 (3%) of the patients required colectomy and only 19 (0.6%) died of UC.Compared with UC in Western countries, ulcerative colitis in China has some differences in clinical characteristics. Therefore, a further population-based epidemiological study is required to determine the prevalence and incidence rates of UC in China.