[Medical mangement of Crohn's disease (author's transl)]

Medical management of Crohn's disease is above all symptomatic. According to the severeness of the case, treatment varies and may be simple (regimen, antidiarrheic agents and sulfamid drugs) or more sophisticated (continous parenteral alimentation). Sulfamids and antibiotics have a definite although temporary action. Pathogenic medication includes: 1) steroid therapy who is active, but its effects are not long stand; 2) immunosuppressors who allow for the reduction of steroid therapy dosages; 3) immunostimulants as proposed by Geffroy. Among those presently studied are Calmette-Guérin vaccine, either given orally or by scarification, and two anti-parasitic drugs, metronidazole and levamisole. Short term results are good but they worsen with time. The main problem is to know when to discuss surgery. As need be, resection although mutilating, should be timely indicated.