Abstract
BACKGROUND: Since its first description, the role of surgery in Crohn's disease (CD) has always been controversial; in fact, it has been mainly considered as a gastroenterological disease for long time. Nevertheless, despite great advances in medical therapy, up to 70-80% of patients with CD will require surgery in their lifetime and up to 30% of them will undergo repeated surgeries due to recurrences. For these reasons, the idea of surgery as a tool in the therapeutic armamentarium to consider even in the early stage of the disease has progressively spread in the last decades, even corroborated by reports showing how primary surgery is able to definitively treat around half of the patients at long-term follow-up. More surgeons are nowadays more and more involved in developing techniques to reduce recurrences that have always been considered as part of the natural history of the disease so far. SUMMARY: In this review, we will go through the role of surgery in the management of CD, showing the potential benefits of an early surgical approach as well as the impact of surgical research in the natural history of the disease. From this standpoint, we will show the role of different anastomotic configurations, emphasizing how more and more data are definitively establishing the impact of the novel Kono-S anastomosis in reducing endoscopic and surgical recurrence. Mesentery-based surgery is a novel and appealing surgical perspective, but more data are required. KEY MESSAGES: Surgery has demonstrated to be a crucial tool in the therapeutic armamentarium for the management of CD. Early surgery and novel surgical techniques, such as the Kono-S anastomosis, may have an impact on the natural history of the disease, including the possibility to prevent recurrences.