Canada - a Hotbed for Crohn's Disease

Summary: An estimated 40,000 Canadians suffer from Crohn’s disease, making Canada one of the highest countries of incidence in the world. However, only one treatment option is available to patients with moderate to severe Crohn’s disease.

Thursday, July 20, 2006 (Toronto): For the estimated 40,000 Canadian patients living every day with moderate to severe Crohn’s disease, more treatment options would be a welcome development . Just ask any patient living with the chronic abdominal pain, constant fatigue and nagging nausea associated with Crohn’s, and they’ll tell you their treatment needs are far from being met.

“I’ve been through the gamut of treatments, from anti-inflammatories to antibiotics to corticosteroids and immuno-suppressants,” says Oren Barmapov, a patient from Toronto who has suffered with Crohn’s for 15 years. “Nothing ever seems to keep my disease in remission for more than a short period of time. Even surgery has been only a partial reprieve. And, with a disease like Crohn’s, where the main symptom is abdominal pain, obstructions and spasms, every moment I’m disease-free just makes a world of a difference.”

Crohn’s disease is a chronic, debilitating and intermittent inflammatory disease of the gastrointestinal tract. Along with ulcerative colitis, it belongs to the group of illnesses known as inflammatory bowel disease. Crohn’s disease, once it starts, tends to fluctuate at unpredictable and irregular intervals between periods of inactivity (remission) and activity (flares or relapses).

Flares can be mild to severe, brief or prolonged. Symptoms of the disease include persistent diarrhea, abdominal pain, loss of weight, loss of appetite, fever and rectal bleeding. Of note, the disease is most often diagnosed in young people less than 25 years of age; and it occurs equally between the sexes.

The exact cause of Crohn’s is unknown, but immune system imbalance, heredity, infections and diet all may play a part. Depending on the severity and location of the disease in the digestive tract, treatment options may vary from anti-inflammatories, antibiotics, corticosteriods and imunosuppressants, to newer injectable biologic therapies.

“However, what may work for one patient, may not necessarily work for another,” says Dr. Dilip Patel, a gastroenterologist from Ottawa. “For patients who suffer from more severe forms of Crohn’s, both they and their physicians often need more than just the one biologic therapy currently available. As well, when you have more therapeutic choices, patient therapy can be based on comparisons in relative effectiveness, safety, tolerability and convenience.”

Crohn’s Disease in Canada Canadians have the dubious distinction of having among the highest prevalence (total cases) and incidence (new cases) of Crohn’s disease in the world. Unfortunately, due to the strong genetic component of Crohn’s disease - having a parent or sibling with Crohn’s disease increases risk by 3 to 20 times — this number is likely to continue to increase over time. The recent Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of Canada Heel n’ Wheel-A-Thon in Ottawa demonstrated the growing voice of Crohn’s in Canada. And with the numbers of patients in this country increasing every year, Canadians living with Crohn’s should have more effective, safe and user-friendly options to help them manage the more severe forms of this debilitating and unforgiving affliction.

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For more information, please contact Tiana DiMichele at 416.666.5331

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