The use of laparoscopic surgery in IBD has been widely questioned because patients with IBD usually have a thickened, brittle intestinal wall and mesentery, often with inflammatory pouching, fistulas and abscesses, in addition to risk factors such as malnutrition, hormonal application, and adhesions from previous surgery. However, in patients with IBD, laparoscopic surgery has many theoretical advantages over traditional open surgery: 1. Patients are usually young and socially active, and it is very important for them to return to normal life and the aesthetics of the surgical incision as soon as possible; 2. Laparoscopy results in relatively few adhesions, reducing the difficulty of reoperation; 3. The reduction of pelvic adhesions can reduce the incidence of postoperative infertility in women of childbearing age; 4. The short-term advantages of laparoscopic surgery observed in the fields of malignancy and diverticulitis can also be reflected in patients with IBD; 5. Laparoscopic surgery may reduce the risk of small bowel obstruction as well as long-term complications such as incisional hernia. Previous meta-analyses and randomized controlled studies have found that laparoscopic ileal resection in patients with Crohn’s disease (CD) is safe and does not increase postoperative complications, but rather reduces postoperative bowel obstruction and shortens the length of hospital stay. Similarly, the advantages of laparoscopy have been demonstrated in subtotal colectomy for ulcerative colitis (UC) and in IPAA surgery. A recent study from France that included 633 patients with IBD over 14 years found that the rate of conversion to open surgery and the rate of serious postoperative complications decreased significantly with increasing laparoscopic experience, as published in the Annals of Surgery, a leading journal of surgery. A total of 790 procedures were performed in the study, of which 574 (73%) were laparoscopic, including 286 (48%) ileal resections, 118 (19%) subtotal colectomies, 134 (21%) IPAA procedures, 23 (8%) partial colectomies, and 18 (4%) combined abdominoperineal resections. Of these, 145 (25%) were complex laparoscopic procedures, including 66 patients with repeat abdominal surgery and 93 patients with abdominal abscesses and fistulas. The rate of conversion to open laparotomy was 12% (67 cases), with one postoperative death (0.2%) and 66 cases (13%) with serious complications. A chronological comparison of the 5 phases showed that the proportion of laparoscopic procedures increased from 42% at the beginning of the study to 80% at the end of the study, and that the proportion of complex laparoscopic procedures increased significantly, while the proportion of intermediate open procedures and the proportion of serious postoperative complications decreased significantly. Therefore, the authors of this study believe that laparoscopic surgery is expected to become the “gold standard” for IBD surgery in the future.