title: Clinical management of Crohn's disease in the elderly.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Crohn's Disease (CD) occurs in the elderly in 5 - 25% of cases. Aim of our study: to define the features of clinical presentation, diagnostic tools and therapy of CD in old age.
  
  
  METHODS
  In the last ten years we observed in our Department 47 patients affected by CD. We divided them into two groups: A (42 patients < 65 years old) and B (5 patients ≥ 65 years old). A retrospective survey evaluated the clinical presentation, diagnosis and treatments with relative outcomes.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Group A: 23/42 patients (54,76%) were operated on. The most important indication for surgery was intestinal obstruction (15/42 pts, 65,2%). Small bowel resection was the most frequent surgical procedure (13/42 pts, 56,2%). Overall, 2/23 (8,7%) of the patients developed postoperative complications. There was no postoperative mortality. 8 pts (34,7 %) developed recrudescence of CD. Group B: 3 of 5 pts were operated on. Intestinal obstruction was the indication for surgery in all cases (100%). Two patients underwent small bowel resection (66,6%) and the third patient was submitted to an ileo-colic resection (33,3%). There was no mortality in the aftermath of surgery. In 2/3 operated patients (66,6%) recurrence occurred. All operations in the old patients were performed in urgency.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Surgery of CD in the elderly appears in our experience to have the same indications and procedures as in young patients. The postoperative morbidity, mortality and recurrence rates are similar in two groups even if we observed slightly higher postoperative morbidity rates in elderly due to the presence of comorbidity.
authors.forename: Nicola
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Carlomagno
authors.forename: Carlo
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Grifasi
authors.forename: Xheseda
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Dumani
authors.forename: Domenico
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Lo Conte
authors.forename: Andrea
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Renda
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D003424:Crohn Disease / Q000601:surgery*; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D012189:Retrospective Studies