The latest epidemiological surveys show that the incidence of inflammatory bowel disease in China has reached 3 in 10,000! Don’t underestimate this number, as inflammatory bowel disease is a lifelong disease, and with new patients being added every year, the entire population is growing like a snowball! When they get a diagnosis, many patients feel painful and uncomfortable. Inflammatory bowel disease is like a “green cancer”, although it cannot be cured, patients can live a normal life for most of their lives, provided they cooperate with their doctors, especially maintenance treatment during the non-onset period.
Inflammatory bowel disease is a “green cancer” There are two concepts of inflammatory bowel disease. One is in the broad sense and the other is in the narrow sense. All kinds of inflammatory bowel disease can be called broad inflammatory bowel disease. But in the narrow sense, it means two diseases, one is ulcerative colitis and the other is Crohn’s disease. In the past, inflammatory bowel disease was mostly seen in developed Western countries and was considered rare in China, but in recent years the incidence in China has been on a significant rise. Just in 2011, an epidemiological survey with a large sample was conducted in Zhongshan City, and the results showed that the incidence of inflammatory bowel disease has reached 3 in 10,000. Since inflammatory bowel disease is a lifelong disease, with new patients added every year, the whole population of the disease is growing like a snowball! Inflammatory bowel disease is highly prevalent in young people, and cases that begin in childhood have become increasingly common.
The pathogenesis of inflammatory bowel disease is not very clear so far, and it is currently believed that the disease has a genetic susceptibility, which leads to immune dysregulation under the action of unknown causes and eventually leads to a series of inflammatory lesions in the intestine that cannot be cured with the current level of medical technology. Many patients feel painful and see no hope when they get the diagnosis. Inflammatory bowel disease is like a “green cancer”. Although it cannot be cured, doctors will do their best to allow patients to live a normal life for most of their lives, and even have children.
The treatment of inflammatory bowel disease is long and lasts a lifetime. The patient’s active cooperation with the physician directly determines the effectiveness of treatment and the patient’s quality of life. The highest incidence of the disease is between 30 and 40 years old, and the main clinical symptoms are recurrent diarrhea and blood in the stool. In Chinese cases, mild and moderate cases are the most common, with good treatment prognosis and uncomplicated medication. Treatment is based on the main principle of regulating the immune response and suppressing inflammation, and can be combined with local medication. After a period of treatment, most patients’ symptoms can disappear. During the non-onset period, medication should be maintained, which is called “maintenance therapy” and can greatly reduce the frequency of recurrence. Since most of the patients are young people, many of them “forget the pain when the symptoms disappear” due to their busy schedules, and stop taking the medication as soon as the symptoms disappear. As a result, diarrhea and blood in the stool may reappear in a short time.
As for Crohn’s disease, it is characterized by diarrhea, abdominal pain and weight loss as the main symptoms. Standardized and continuous treatment is what reduces the frequency of attacks and thus the chance of various complications due to recurrent attacks, such as intestinal obstruction, abscesses, fistulas, etc.
For some patients who struggle with whether to see a medical or surgical doctor, inflammatory bowel disease inherently requires a combination of medical and surgical treatment. Conventional treatment is in internal medicine, but when complications arise, such as intestinal obstruction and abdominal abscesses, surgeons are needed to help “hold the tail”. However, surgical treatment cannot relieve the patient, and the recurrence rate is still very high for inflammatory bowel disease after lesion removal, and surgical treatment still requires referral back to internal medicine for continued active treatment.