EPIDEMIOLOGICAL PROFILE AND CLINICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF INFLAMMATORY BOWEL DISEASES IN A BRAZILIAN REFERRAL CENTER

ABSTRACT BACKGROUND: The increase in the incidence and prevalence rates of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is evident in many newly industrialized countries in Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe, and the American continent. In Brazil, records are still scarce, and further studies on this topic are needed. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the epidemiological profile and clinical characteristics of patients with IBD who were followed up at a reference service in the state of São Paulo. METHODS: We retrospectively analyzed the medical records of patients with IBD who were followed up in a Brazilian Referral Center. RESULTS: A total of 625 patients was evaluated, 416 with Crohn’s disease (CD), 190 with ulcerative colitis (UC), and 19 with indeterminate colitis. The average age of the patients was 31.6 years, with a homogeneous distribution between males and females patients. In patients with CD, the most predominant Montreal classification was A2, L3, and B1, with 44.8% of patients presenting with perianal disease; in UC, it was E2, and S0. The main extraintestinal manifestation was rheumatologic, followed by cutaneous and ophthalmic lesions. The majority of patients (85.4%) used some type of medication, the most frequent being aminosalicylates in patients with UC and biological therapy in patients with CD. Regarding surgeries, in CD, a significant percentage of patients underwent some type of surgical procedure, unlike the UC patients, including fistulotomies and placement of seton, derivative ostomies, enterectomy, ileocecectomy/right colectomy, total or partial colectomy, and strictureplasty. Only 195 (31.2%) patients lived in the city of Campinas, while 443 (70.9%) were from the 7th Regional Health Department (RHD), which corresponds to the macro-region of Campinas. CONCLUSION: In this study, most patients came from the 7th RHD of Campinas; the patients were young, with no predominance of either sex; there was a higher frequency of patients with CD (66.6%). Most of them (85.4%) were undergoing pharmacological treatment, and a significant percentage of CD patients had undergone surgery.

The societal importance of journalistic health reporting on the COVID-19 pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa: Impressions from science and health journalism organizations

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a major impact on health systems and economies around the world. This is particularly true for developing and newly industrialized countries that often have to deal with poverty and inadequate health systems. A greater awareness of COVID-19 and its consequences, generated and fostered by journalistic health reporting, may contribute to better preparations. The societal importance of journalistic health reporting and its challenges in sub-Saharan societies during the pandemic are examined. A qualitative research design relying on interviews with representatives of African science and health journalism organizations is employed. The results show that health reporting during health crises can provide a variety of normative functions of journalism in democracies and in autocratic developing and newly industrialized countries, but it presents many challenges for journalists and media houses. COVID-19 also offers starting points for global media assistance in strengthening and improving health reporting in the long term.

DOP41 Temporal Trends in the epidemiology of Inflammatory Bowel Diseases in the public healthcare system in Brazil: A large population-based study

Background Background: Population-based data on incidence and prevalence of Inflammatory Bowel Diseases (IBD) in newly industrialized countries such as Brazil are scarce. This study aims to define temporal trends of estimated incidence and prevalence rates of Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC) in Brazil using unique public healthcare datasets. Methods Methods: All IBD patients (UC and CD) from the unique public healthcare national system (DATASUS) were included from January 2012 to December 2020 and identified according to ICD codes, medication use or IBD-relates procedures. Data extraction was performed with the platform “TT Disease Explorer” (Techtrials Healthcare Data Science, Brazil) and checked by 2 independent reviewers. The platform collects publicly available data from the ministry of health via electronic algorithms (ETLs and Webcrawlers) with automatic updates. The population of Brazil was calculated according to the national Brazilian Geographics and Statistics Institute (IBGE). Average Annual Percent Change (AAPC) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were calculated using poisson (or negative binomial) regression for incidence and log binomial regression for prevalence. Results Results: A total of 212,026 IBD patients (UC: n=140,705; CD: n=92,326) were included, There was a higher proportion of females as opposed to males, and age at health system entry was similar to developed countries (figure 1). Estimated incidence rates of IBD were 9.41 per 100,000 in 2012 and 9.57 per 100,000 in 2020 (AAPC=0.80%; CI -0.37–1.99; p=0.18); for UC, incidence increased from 5.69 per 100,000 to 6.89 per 100,000 (AAPC=3.04; CI 1.51–4.58; p<0.001) and for CD incidence dropped from 3.71 per 100,000 to 2.68 per 100,000 (AAPC=-3.24%; CI -4.45- -2.02; p<0.001) in the same time period (figure 2). Estimated prevalence rates of IBD increased significantly from 30.01 per 100,000 in 2012 to 100.13 per 100,000 in 2020 (AAPC=14.87%; CI 14.78–14.95; p<0.001); For UC, from 17.4 per 100,000 to 66.45 per 100,000 (AAPC=16.51%; CI 16.41–16.62; p<0.001) and for CD from 14.24 per 100,000 to 43.6 per 100,000 (AAPC=13.49%; CI13.37-13.61; p<0.001) in the same time period (figure 3). Conclusion Conclusions: Estimated incidence rates of IBD have remained stable from 2012–2020. Incidence of CD is significantly decreasing whereas of UC is significantly increasing. There was a significant increase in estimated prevalence rates of CD and UC. This massive rise in prevalence can support planning for future strategies for public healthcare providers in our country towards better IBD care. This is the largest IBD epidemiological study from newly industrialized countries to date.