The number of patients in Japan is estimated to be 10,22. Former Prime Minister Abe and track and field athlete Yoshihide Kiryu also suffered from the disease.
Ulcerative colitis is designated as an intractable disease because the cause is not known and no treatment has been established. New treatment methods are being developed to improve symptoms by extracting healthy cells from the patient's large intestine and transplanting them into patients' large intestine. In order to reduce burden on patients who suffer from symptoms for a long time, there is a growing movement to develop new treatments.