Surgical strategies in patients with inflammatory bowel disease

Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis are specific inflammatory bowel diseases. Quality of life can be considerably limited. It does not depend on the form of therapy that Crohn's disease is highly recurrent, whereas colitis ulcerosa is curable by proctocolectomy. For both forms of disease surgery is an important option. It has to be included early in the therapy concept and not as last choice. Quality of life in patients with Crohn's disease can be raised significantly by surgery. Meticulous selection of the patients are essential to the policy of surgery as well as a regular aftercare. Best profit for those patients are treatment with an interdisciplinary team, consisting of gastroenterologists, nutrition advisers, psychologists, surgeons and radiologists.