[Follow-up of chronic inflammatory bowel disease. A 10-year material]

During a ten year period, all patients (N = 641) with chronic inflammatory bowel disease were systematically followed, clinically and endoscopically by means of mucosal biopsies. The complexity of these disorders was obvious, and in 103 patients it was impossible to establish a diagnosis of either ulcerative colitis or Crohn's disease. Fulminant colitis occurred in 9.8% of the ulcerative colitis patients and only four of these had to have surgery. Total colectomy was necessary in only 58 patients. Twenty-one patients died, four from causes related to the inflammatory bowel disease. Six patients with ulcerative colitis were treated for adenocarcinoma of the colon. No malignancies were found in the patients with Crohn's disease. The biopsies showed only two patients with high grade dysplasia.