clinical and epidemiological characteristics in ulcerative colitis patients referred to imam hospital, 1995-2000

inflammatory bowel diseases are one of the important reasons of the referral to gi practitioners in our country and ulcerative colitis is the more frequent type of these disease in iran. in this study 200 cases of ulcerative colitis, which has been referred to imam khomeini hospital during that last 5 year, were studied. data was collected using the patient's records and face to face interview with them and their relatives. majority of the patients were female (55 percent). positive family history was seen in 28 percent of patients, autoimmune disease history in 8 percent, smoking history in 11 percent and smoking cessation history in 13 percent of patients. most prevalent symptoms in the patients were nocturnal bleeding, rectal bleeding and bloody diarrhea. the most common involved area were recto sigmoid (58 percent) and descending colon (42 percent). pan colitis was seen in 8 percent. most people had complications and the most common complications was fissure (14 percent). recurrence was seen in 83.5 percent of patients. with logistic regression analysis the only variable which showed significant relation with recurrence was male sex. according to the results of this study, it seems that ulcerative colitis clinical and epidemiological pattern in iran is similar to many other countries, but the higher rate of recurrence and extra intestinal manifestations in patients shows that there is a growing need to reconsider the treatment efficacy in patients and correct the treatment methods.