Abstract
Ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease are an idiopathic chronic inflammatory disease of the gastrointestinal tract. In case of ulcerative colitis (UC), inflammation affects colonic mucosa predominantly, which typically starts in the rectum and extends proximally trough the entire colon.
Bloody diarrhoea is the characteristic symptom of the disease. Crohn's disease (CD) is granulomatous and transmural inflammation affecting segmentally or pluri-segmentally any part of the digestive tract, so that the clinical manifestations are mainly dependent on the localization of CN.
Both, UC and CD, are characterized by alternating intervals of active and inactive disease in 80-90% patients and requiring lifelong treatment.