Editorial
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. May 28, 2015; 21(20): 6097-6100
Published online May 28, 2015. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v21.i20.6097
Surgical recurrence in Crohn’s disease: Are we getting better?
Ivan Kristo, Anton Stift, Michael Bergmann, Stefan Riss
Ivan Kristo, Anton Stift, Michael Bergmann, Stefan Riss, Department of Surgery, Medical University of Vienna, A-1090 Vienna, Austria
Author contributions: Kristo I, Stift A, Bergmann M and Riss S contributed in writing and reviewing of this article; all authors approved the final version.
Conflict-of-interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Stefan Riss, MD, FRCS, Assistant Professor, Department of Surgery, Medical University of Vienna, Währinger Gürtel 18-20, A-1090 Vienna, Austria. stefan.riss@meduniwien.ac.at
Telephone: +43-1-404005621 Fax: +43-1-40400 6932
Received: December 27, 2014
Peer-review started: December 29, 2014
First decision: January 22, 2015
Revised: February 4, 2015
Accepted: March 18, 2015
Article in press: March 19, 2015
Published online: May 28, 2015
Abstract

Crohn’s disease (CD) still remains a challenging chronic inflammatory disorder, both for colorectal surgeons and gastroenterologists. The need for recurrent surgery following primary intestinal resection is still considerable, though recent evidence suggested a declining rate of recurrence. Several conflicting surgical parameters have been identified that might impact on the postoperative outcome positively, such as access to the abdomen, anastomotic configuration or type of disease. Additionally, promising results have been achieved with the increased use of immunosuppressive medications in CD. Consequently, the question arises if we are getting better as a result of novel medical and surgical strategies.

Keywords: Crohn’s disease, Surgical recurrence, Recurrence, Inflammatory bowel disease

Core tip: Crohn’s disease still remains a challenging chronic inflammatory disorder, both for colorectal surgeons and gastroenterologists. There is still a considerable risk for recurrent surgery following intestinal resection, although recent evidence suggests a declining number of recurrence rates. Consequently, the question arises if we are getting better as a result of novel medical and surgical strategies.