Crohn's Disease: When Surgery Is Needed - Topic Overview
Surgery for Crohn's disease usually is needed if ongoing symptoms do not respond to medicine or if side effects of medicine cause other serious problems.
Surgery may be needed when you have:
There isn't one test that can tell you whether or not you have Crohn's disease. And Crohn's disease has many possible symptoms that are the same as symptoms for other health problems. So, to make a diagnosis of Crohn's disease, your doctor is likely to gather information from multiple sources. You'll probably go through a combination of exams, lab tests, and imaging studies with these goals in mind: rule out other health problems that have similar symptoms make a clear diagnosis of Crohn...
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- Bowel blockage (obstruction).
- Abscesses or tears (fissures) in the anal area or when abnormal connections (fistulas) form between two parts of the intestine or between the intestine and other internal organs.
- Holes (perforations) in the large intestine.
- Cancer or precancerous tissue.
- Severe disease that does not respond to other treatment.
- Severe bleeding that requires ongoing blood transfusions.
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