Korean Children and Adolescents with Crohn's Disease Are More Likely to Present with Perianal Fistulizing Disease at Diagnosis Compared to Their European Counterparts
Ben Kang, Jung Eun Kim, Jae Hun Jung, Jae Young Choe, Mi Jin Kim, Yon Ho Choe, Seung Kim, Hong Koh, Yoo Min Lee, Jee Hyun Lee, Yoon Lee, Ji Hyuk Lee, Hae Jeong Lee, Hyo-Jeong Jang, You Jin Choi, So Yoon Choi, Ju Young Kim, Byung‐Ho Choe
Abstract
PURPOSE: We aimed to investigate the disease phenotype of Korean pediatric Crohn's disease (CD) patients at diagnosis according to the Paris classification by comparison with patients from the European multicenter 5-years recruitment of children with newly developed IBD (EUROKIDS registry). METHODS: Korean children and adolescents who had been newly diagnosed with CD at the age of <18 years during 2013-2016 were included in this multicenter retrospective study. Disease phenotype at diagnosis was classified according to the Paris classification, and compared with the published data from the EUROKIDS study. RESULTS: =0.015, respectively). CONCLUSION: Approximately half of pediatric CD patients in Korea present with perianal fistulas and/or abscesses at diagnosis, which is a distinct feature of CD in Korean children and adolescents compared to their European counterparts. An underlying genetic difference between ethnicities may play a role in this expression of different phenotypes in pediatric CD.