Crohn’s Disease Surgery – Are There Any Alternatives?

Crohn’s disease surgery gives doctors and surgeons the chance to treat problems that medication cannot. Of all those who suffer from this particular health condition, around 75% of them will at some stage need to have surgery and in some cases they may need more than one operation in order to treat the problem.

There are many forms of surgery that doctors treating a patient with Crohn’s disease may recommend. Below we take a brief look at four of them.

1. Partial Bowel Resection – This particular form of surgery is performed when a part of the intestine has become so damaged from the disease that an obstruction has been caused. The surgeon will cut out the piece of damaged intestine and then suture the other two open healthy ends to each other.

2. Strictureplasty – With this operation the surgeon makes an incision down the length of the stricture which is a small part of the narrowed intestine. After the incision has been made it is pulled together and then are sewn together. The operation causes the stricture to become slightly shorter but does causes it to become wider.

3. Correcting Fistulas – This particular operation requires the surgeon to actually close the opening between the intestines and another internal organ. By doing this it prevents the contents of the intestine from draining into the organ and so preventing an infection from developing.

4. Draining Abscesses – This is the most simple of the forms of Crohn’s disease surgery employed to treat this condition. A hollow needle is inserted through the skin to where the abscess is located and the infectious material within it is drawn out.