Crohn's disease

The bottom line Crohn’s disease is a chronic inflammatory disorder that can affect any part of the gastrointestinal tract. Although the disease most commonly presents at a young age, it can affect people of all ages. Patients often present with persistent diarrhoea, abdominal pain, and weight loss. Crohn’s disease has a global impact on patients’ education, work, and social and family life. High quality multidisciplinary care, of which primary care is a key aspect, can attenuate relapse, prevent long term complications, and improve quality of life. In this review we provide a practical approach to the diagnosis, management, and long term care of patients with Crohn’s disease. #### Sources and selection criteria We carried out an electronic search of PubMed, the Cochrane Library, and Ovid databases for articles using the term “Crohn’s disease”. We limited studies to those in adults and focused on high quality randomised control trials, meta-analyses, and systematic reviews. Crohn’s disease is an idiopathic, chronic relapsing immune mediated disease, the pathogenesis of which remains incompletely understood, although the condition is thought to arise from environmental priming and …