Nationwide estimates of patient numbers and prevalence rates of ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease in Japan in 2023.

Background: Almost a decade has passed since the previous nationwide survey on the prevalence of ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn's disease (CD) in Japan was conducted in 2015. We conducted a new nationwide hospital-based survey to provide updated estimates of the patient numbers and prevalence rates of UC and CD in Japan in 2023.

Methods: Stratified random sampling was used to select hospital departments (internal medicine, surgery, pediatrics, and pediatric surgery) that routinely treat UC and CD patients. We sent questionnaires to the sampled departments to request sex-specific information on their patient numbers for UC and CD in 2023. Based on the responses, we estimated the annual patient numbers and prevalence rates of UC and CD throughout Japan. The estimates were compared with those from the previous 2015 survey.

Results: The overall survey response rate was 50.8% (1,798/3,538 departments). The estimated patient numbers were approximately 316,900 (95% confidence interval: 223,900-409,900) for UC and 95,700 (61,100-130,400) for CD, both of which represent a 1.4-fold increase over the 8-year period since 2015. The annual prevalence rates per 100,000 population were 254.8 (male: 297.5; female: 214.4) for UC and 77.0 (male: 112.9, female: 43.0) for CD. The male-to-female ratios were 1.31 for UC and 2.49 for CD, and the UC-to-CD ratio was 3.31.

Conclusions: The patient numbers and prevalence rates of UC and CD have continued to steadily increase in Japan, suggesting the need for continued monitoring and further investigation to track the disease burden.