Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) including Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis is a potentially life-threatening inflammatory gut condition with substantial morbidity and without a cure. IBD has become a worldwide epidemic but its aetiology remains unknown. The increasing incidence and prevalence of IBD in Asia in the past two decades is likely to become a public health problem over time. There is an urgent need to pursue factors associated with disease development, and the emergence of IBD in our population provides a unique opportunity to study disease pathogenesis.