Ruma Rajbhandari, Samantha Blakemore, Neil Gupta, Alma J Adler, Christopher Allen Noble, Sara Mannan, Klejda Nikolli, Alison Yih, Sameer Joshi, Gene Bukhman
While Crohn’s disease has been studied extensively in high-income countries, its epidemiology and care in low and lower-middle income countries (LLMICs) is not well established due to a lack of disease registries and diagnostic capacity.
The database search yielded 4486 publications, 216 of which were determined tobe relevant to the research questions. Of all 79 LLMICs, only 21 (26.6%) have publications describing individuals with Crohn’s. Overall, the highest number of studies came from India, followed by Tunisia, and Egypt. The mean number of Crohn’s patients reported per study is 57.84 and the median is 22, with a wide range from one to 980.
This scoping review has shown that, although there is a severe lack of population- based data about Crohn’s in LLMICs, there is a signal of Crohn’s in these settings around the world.