Crohn’s Disease: A Remaining Medical Enigma and Surgical Challenge

Abstract

Because the place of surgery in the management of Crohn’s disease is so different from that in the management of ulcerative colitis, these two diseases are described separately; therefore there will be a certain overlap between these two sections of the book. Many of the factors in the aetiology and epidemiology are so similar in the two diseases that many people consider that Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis are different manifestations of the same disease. In many monographs on inflammatory bowel disease there is a tendency to consider the diseases under the one heading of idiopathic inflammatory bowel disease. However, we make no apology for separating them in this surgical textbook for reasons that will be obvious from reading the sections on the surgical treatment of the two diseases. Of the two, Crohn’s disease is by far the more protean in its manifestations as will be seen; not only can it occur anywhere throughout the alimentary tract but also it can apparently affect the liver, skin, the eyes and joints.