Yaroslava Zhulina

TL;DR: Whether an East–West gradient in the incidence of inflammatory bowel disease in Europe exists is investigated to find out whether international guidelines for diagnosis and initial treatment are not being followed uniformly by physicians.

TL;DR: In this European population-based inception cohort of unselected IBD patients, Eastern and Western European patients differing in environmental factors prior to diagnosis exhibited higher occurrences of suspected risk factors for IBD included in the Western lifestyle.

TL;DR: Surgery and hospitalization rates did not differ between patients from eastern and western Europe, although more western European patients received biological agents and were comparable to previous population-based inception cohorts.

TL;DR: Faecal calprotectin, an established biomarker used to assess mucosal inflammation, has been shown to correlate with endoscopic activity in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and has rarely been employed beyond assessment of therapy response and post hoc analyses of clinical trials.

TL;DR: The majority of IBD patients in both Eastern and Western Europe reported a positive perception of disease-specific but not generic HRQoL, and medical and surgical treatment improved HRZoL during the first year of disease.