Abstract

We read the article by Calderón et al¹ with great interest. This was a systematic review searching published and unpublished studies from January 2000 to September 2015 to estimate the epidemiology and burden of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) in Latin America. We agree that the burden of IBD in our region seems to be important, besides that there is a considerable gap of evidence in the different studies. Recently, Bernstein² has shown that different types of registries can provide analysis of diverse epidemiological questions. The development of adequate records would allow us to know whether there really is a difference in the development and evolution of IBD between the Hispanic and non-Hispanic population,^{3, 4} and even to know whether there are variances between the different countries of Latin America. The rapid increase in incidence in parallel to the change in lifestyles could explain the key role of the environment in the pathogenesis of IBD in our region.⁵