Abstract
Crohn's disease is a chronic condition with an increasing annual incidence of 3-20 cases per 100 000 population. Characteristic features include discontinuous skip lesions of the gastrointestinal tract and, histologically, transmural granulomas inflammation.
The most frequent clinical presentations include diarrhea, abdominal pain and weight loss, with alternating periods of remission and flare-up. Despite intensive pharmacotherapy, most patients required surgical intervention.
The advent of biological medicines has dramatically changed the therapeutic strategy. The review article has been developed based on information available in the PubMed, the MEDLINE search engine, using terms Crohn's disease and idiopathic inflammatory bowel disease as the search terms.