Prevalence of paediatric inflammatory bowel disease in Sweden: a nationwide population-based register study

BACKGROUND: We evaluated the impact of different case definition algorithms on the prevalence of paediatric inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC) and to compare the occurrence of certain diseases compared to matched controls. METHODS: Paediatric patients (<18 years) were identified via ICD codes for UC and CD in Swedish registers between 1993 and 2010 (n = 1432). Prevalence was defined as ≥2 IBD-related visits. Prevalence of treated children in 2010 was defined as ≥2 IBD-related visits with one visit and ≥1 dispensed IBD-related drug prescription in 2010. To test the robustness of the estimates, prevalence was also calculated according to alternative case definitions. The presence of rheumatic, hepatobiliary, pancreatic, and dermatologic diseases were compared with age-/sex-/county-of-residence-matched general population controls. RESULTS: The IBD prevalence was 75/100,000 (CD: 29/100,000; UC: 30/100,000; patients with IBD-U: 16/100,000). Prevalence of treated disease in 2010 was 62/100,000 (CD: 23/100,000; UC: 25/100,000; patients with IBD-U: 13/100,000). When age restrictions were employed, the prevalence estimate decreased (<17y: 61/100,000, <16y: 49/100,000 and <15y: 38/100,000). Compared to general population controls (n = 8583), children with IBD had a higher prevalence of dermatologic (4.7% vs. 0.6%), hepatobiliary (including primary sclerosing cholangitis) (5.5% vs. 0.1%), pancreatic (1.7% vs. 0%) and rheumatic diseases (7.2% vs. 1.2%; all P < 0.01). CONCLUSIONS: The overall prevalence of paediatric IBD in Sweden was similar to that in earlier regional cohorts. IBD patients had a higher prevalence of comorbid conditions than matched general population controls. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12876-017-0578-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.