How do I choose surgical or conservative treatment for Crohn’s disease?

  Crohn’s disease has a tendency to recur, and the recurrence rate remains high even after surgery. Therefore, in most cases, Crohn’s disease is treated primarily with internal medicine.  Surgical treatment is only considered in the following cases: 1, refractory patients for whom aggressive medical treatment (several months) has failed; 2, patients with severe complications, including intestinal obstruction due to intestinal stricture, intestinal perforation, fistulas, digestive chronic blood loss or hemorrhage (when conservative medical treatment is ineffective), toxic megacolon, intra-abdominal infection with abscess formation or cancer; 3, malnutrition that has failed with medical treatment, especially when growth arrest occurs in adolescent patients.  It has been reported that most patients with Crohn’s also show recurrence of endoscopic or clinical symptoms after resection, with an endoscopic recurrence rate of about 28%-73% and a symptomatic recurrence rate of about 50% 1 year after surgery. Therefore, postoperative recurrence prevention is extremely important.  Studies have shown that 6-MP or AZA can effectively prevent postoperative recurrence of Crohn’s disease. 2-4 weeks after surgery, AZA was started in combination with metronidazole, and the endoscopic recurrence rate was 34.3% after 3 months compared to 52.6% in the control group. 43.7% after 1 year compared to 69% in the control group. However, the clinical application of AZA is limited because most patients are intolerant to it. With the increasing use of biologic agents, infliximab (5 mg/kg at 0, 2, and 6 weeks, followed by one dose at 8-week intervals) at 2-4 weeks postoperatively has become a better choice. 1 year later, compared with the control group, the endoscopic mucosal inflammation grade was significantly lower and the endoscopic recurrence rate and histological inflammation recurrence rate were significantly better than the control group. the CDAI score was also at a lower level. The most recent study showed that patients given infliximab immediately 2-4 weeks postoperatively had a significantly lower recurrence rate, a significantly higher clinical remission rate, and a significantly higher rate of complete mucosal healing at 3-year follow-up (72% vs. 20%) compared to patients who were rechallenged postoperatively. There were also fewer side effects relative to AZA, with no significant difference from the placebo group. In addition to medication to prevent recurrence, patients should strictly avoid risk factors such as smoking and taking NSAIDs-like drugs.