The Emerging Epidemic of Inflammatory Bowel Disease in Asia and Iran by 2035: A Modeling Study

Abstract

Background: The projection studies are imperative to optimize the future need for health care systems and proper response to the public health problems such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Methods: To accomplish this, we established an illness-death model based on available data to project the future prevalence of IBD in Asia regions and Iran separately from 2017 to 2035. We applied two deterministic and stochastic approaches. Results: For 2035 compared to 2020, we projected a 2.5-fold increase in prevalent cases for Iran with 69 thousand cases, a 2.3-fold increment for North Africa and the Middle East with 220 thousand cases, quadrupling of the prevalence for India with 2.2 million cases, a 1.5-fold increment for East Asia region with 4.5 million cases and a 1.6-fold increase in prevalence for High‐income Asia‐Pacific and Southeast Asia regions with 183 and 199 thousand cases respectively. Conclusions: Our results showed an emerging epidemic for the prevalence of IBD in Asia regions or/and countries. Hence, we suggest the need for emergency action to control this increasing trend in Asia and Iran.