Surgery for quality of life improvement in Crohn's disease: Long-term follow-up

Crohn's disease is an inflammatory disorder that affects various parts of the gastrointestinal tract. The management of Crohn's disease involves various anti-inflammatory and antibiotic agents while the role of surgery is limited to the treatment of disease associated complications. During recent years surgical therapy was also advocated for the improvement of the quality of life in patients with incapacitating Crohn's disease. In a previous study we demonstrated both the safety and efficacy of bowel-preserving surgery in a group of patients with Crohn's disease with no absolute indication for surgery, but with severe impediment of their quality of life due to severe disease activity and its therapy. The present study was undertaken to evaluate the long-term outcome of this group of patients. Fifteen Crohn's disease patients operated on for the improvement of the quality of life were followed for a median of 106 (range 82-132) months. During this time only 27% of the patients required reoperation for the treatment of recurrent Crohn's disease. The median surgery-free interval was 92.6 months and the 10-year surgery-free survival was 72%. Based on our results in this small group of patients, we suggest that there is a long-term benefit of surgical therapy for patients with Crohn's disease operated on in an attempt to improve their quality of life.