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More than 1.4 million Americans suffer from irritable bowel disease (IBD). Of these, 25 percent are children. There are two main types of IBD that people typically think about: Crohn's Disease and Ulcerative Colitis.
The difference between the two is dependent upon where in the body the disease occurs. Crohn's Disease can affect essentially anywhere along the digestive tract, whereas Ulcerative Colitis generally affects the lining of the large intestine. Another determining factor is how deep the disease goes into the tissue. With Crohn's Disease , the disease goes all the way through the tissue. Ulcerative Colitis affects just the lining of the large intestine.
Doctors are still learning about what exactly causes and triggers irritable bowel disease, and what populations are more prone to having the condition. Right now, though, there is no known cure. Patients with IBD will likely require a lifetime of medical care.
IBD occurs because a person’s immune system has a consistent over-response to bacteria – good and bad – in the body. In a person without IBD, the immune system reacts to bad bacteria by attacking it. When the bad bacteria has been taken care of, the immune system relaxes. In a person with IBD, however, the immune system doesn’t know when to stop attacking. This leads to flare-ups and complications.
Listen in as Dr. Wallace Crandall, Director of the Center for Pediatric and Adolescent Inflammatory Bowel Disease at Nationwide, talks more about living with irritable bowel disease. Dr. Crandall also leads a team that helped to start the ImproveCareNow Network. ImproveCareNow Network is a collaborative made up of about 30 healthcare sites around the country that collect and share data about IBD trends and treatments. This shared knowledge is then used to provide the best treatment to IBD patients, nation-wide.
Since Nationwide Children’s started participating in the ImproveCareNow Network collaborative about four years ago, remission rates for our patients increased from 50 percent to 80 percent without any new treatments – that’s a statistic to be proud of!
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