Background and Aims Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) appears to be increasingly common in children even in Eastern Europe. The aim of this paper was to examine the prevalence of children with IBD and to compare the results with a similar study performed twelve years ago.

Methods We report the results of a survey of all the departments of pediatric gastroenterology in Bucharest designed to determine the characteristics of children with IBD. We selected patients with ulcerative colitis (UC) and Cohn’s Disease (CD) during a 12 years period (2ooo–2012). The patients of the cohort were stratified according to diagnosis CD and UC, as well as age at first manifestation.

Results There were 21 cases of IBD in children reported in 2000 and 77 children in 2012. From those pediatric patients who were diagnosed as IBD between 2000–2012, we identified 41 cases of UC (53.2%) and 36 patients with CD (46.7%). The previous study reported 17 (81%) patients with UC and 4 (19%) patients with CD. The mean age of onset of symptoms in 2012 was 10.2 years while in 2000 this was 13.2 years. 14.9% of children are under 5 year of age.

Conclusion Number of patients with IBD has tripled in the last 12 years in our geographical area. UC is still the most frequent form of IBD in children but we report a growing number of CD cases. There is a significant trend for first manifestation occurring at younger ages today compared to the last decade.