[Chronic inflammatory bowel diseases. Clinical aspects and new therapy approaches]

There is a continuously increasing incidence in inflammatory bowel diseases affecting mostly young people who are in a vulnerable phase of life. Thus, early diagnosis and initiation of an effective therapeutic regimen is critical in order to maintain a good quality of life. In Germany, the standard therapeutic strategy is an accelerated step up approach, including the introduction of early immunosuppressive therapy if required. Although novel therapeutic strategies have found their way into clinical use there is still a substantial subgroup of patients where effective therapy is lacking. The future introduction of anti-adhesion molecule antibodies might provide a realistic option for this subgroup. Equally important is the availability of predictive markers allowing stratification of patients into subgroups at the time of diagnosis. Assuming that the CD8(+) T cell transcriptome approach will be confirmed in prospective trials, personalized therapy in patients with inflammatory bowel disease will be the next step.