Conservative surgery in Crohn disease

As with any disease of unknown etiology, treatment must be based on clinical experience. The principles of conservative surgical treatment outlined offer a compromise between the apparently conflicting interests of symptomatic treatment of a progressive disease and the nutritional consequences thereof. Until more specific etiologic data are available and reliable prognostic indicators characterized, we must base our therapeutic advice on principles that will achieve the maximum symptomatic benefit with the minimum of metabolic and nutritional consequences.