[Inflammatory bowel diseases--can genetic studies assist in improving treatment?]

Both genetic and environmental factors contribute to the etiology of inflammatory bowel diseases. Recently, progress has been achieved in identifying genetic susceptibility thereby adding to the current knowledge on molecular inflammatory pathways and initiating a wave of emerging drugs based on rational drug design. The lesson to be learned is that many more genes may be involved in disease etiology and that both genome-wide and candidate association studies are necessary for further advances in the field.