Risk Factors of Surgical Recurrence after Resection for Crohn's Disease

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The surgery is required in more than 80% of patients with Crohn’s disease. Crohn’s disease is associated with high rates of postoperative recurrence. The aim of the study was to identify, the risk factors of postoperative ‘surgical recurrence’ after the first resection for Crohn’s disease.

We report a retrospective study from January 1998 to September 2010 that studied 226 patients originated only from Tunisia (in North Africa), operated on for MC. We had been interested to the risk factor of surgical recurrence of Crohn’s disease.

Mean age was 33 years. The average time between the onset of the disease and the surgical procedure was 31 months. The diagnosis of CD was established preoperatively in 213 patients (94%). The diagnosis was made intraoperatively because of an acute complication in 5 cases (2.2%) and postoperatively in 8 cases (3.5%). The most common location was the ileocecal junction in 184 cases (81.4%). The most common type of lesion was the mixed form (stricture and fistula) in 123 cases (54.4%). Operative mortality was 0.04% (n=1). Specific morbidity was 8.4% (n=19). In long term, a surgical recurrence was noted in 18 patients (8%). In multivariate analysis, independent risk factors for recurrence were: smoking (p=0.012, ORs=3.57) and post-operative medical treatment (p=0.05, ORs=2.6).

Our series is unique for a lower rate of the postoperative recurrence (8%). The two risk factors of recurrence are smoking and the necessity of postoperative medical prophylaxis.