Clinical characterization and healthcare burden of difficult-to-treat inflammatory bowel disease in Latin America: a real-world registry-based study.
The study identifies a sizable group of patients in Latin America with difficult-to-treat IBD—especially Crohn’s disease—highlighting higher disease severity, younger onset, and longer diagnostic delays that can affect care needs and planning.
Adult IBD patients (especially those with Crohn's and perianal disease), gastroenterologists and IBD specialists in Latin America, healthcare planners, and researchers studying IBD severity and outcomes.
What To Know
Why it matters This registry-based study analyzed IBD patients across 11 Latin American databases and applied international consensus criteria to define "difficult-to-treat" IBD (DTT-IBD). About 13% of the cohort met DTT-IBD criteria, with much higher prevalence in Crohn’s disease (≈30%) than ulcerative colitis (≈2%).
What to know The study used retrospective registry data from multiple Latin American sources to compare patients who met DTT-IBD criteria versus those who did not. DTT-IBD patients were younger at symptom onset and diagnosis and experienced longer diagnostic delays.
Among DTT-CD patients, complex perianal disease and penetrating behavior were common; among DTT-UC patients, extensive colitis and failure of multiple advanced therapies were prominent.
Care implications These findings suggest a substantial subgroup of patients in LATAM have severe, treatment-refractory disease and may need multidisciplinary care, earlier specialist referral, and strategies to reduce diagnostic delay. Health systems and clinicians in the region may need to plan resources accordingly.
This is a retrospective registry study using international consensus criteria for DTT-IBD and aggregated data from multiple LATAM registries. As an observational study, it describes prevalence and associations but does not establish causation. The structured content depth is an abstract of the published article.
