Patients with inflammatory bowel disease [IBD] increasingly use alternative and complementary therapies, for which appropriate evidence is often lacking. It is estimated that up to half of all patients with IBD use various forms of complementary and alternative medicine during some point in their disease course. Considering the frequent use of such therapies, it is crucial that physicians and patients are informed about their efficacy and safety in order to provide guidance and evidence-based advice. Additionally, increasing evidence suggests that some psychotherapies and mind–body interventions may be beneficial in the management of IBD, but their best use remains a matter of research. Herein, we provide a comprehensive review of some of the most commonly used complementary, alternative and psychotherapy interventions in IBD.

This new diagnostic consensus guideline is a joint project of the European Crohn’s and Colitis Organisation [ECCO] and the European Society of Gastrointestinal and Abdominal Radiology [ESGAR] that now merges the former ECCO-ESGAR Imaging Guideline and the former ECCO Endoscopy Guideline, also including laboratory parameters. It has been drafted by 30 ECCO and ESGAR members from 17 European countries.

This new diagnostic consensus guideline is a joint project of the European Crohn’s and Colitis Organisation [ECCO] and the European Society of Gastrointestinal and Abdominal Radiology [ESGAR] that now merges the former ECCO-ESGAR Imaging Guideline and the former ECCO Endoscopy Guideline, also including laboratory parameters. It has been drafted by 30 ECCO and ESGAR members from 17 European countries.

Management of patients with inflammatory bowel disease [IBD] has become increasingly complex, but at the same time very exciting and challenging. For a long time, surgery in IBD has been considered as a last resort, and although ‘multidisciplinary treatment’ has always been a popular term, involving a surgeon in daily practice was frequently limited to therapy-refractory patients. The most exciting change over the last few decades is probably the fact that involving a surgeon at an early stage of the disease is now considered good clinical practice, and is part of most quality-control parameters.

These guidelines provide a guide to clinicians managing children with UC and IBD-unclassified management to provide modern management strategies while maintaining vigilance around appropriate outcomes and safety issues.

Background and aim: Acute severe colitis (ASC) is one of the few emergencies in pediatric gastroenterology. Tight monitoring and timely medical and surgical interventions may improve outcomes and minimize morbidity and mortality. We aimed to standardize daily treatment of ASC in children through detailed recommendations and practice points which are based on a systematic review of the literature and consensus of experts.

This is the second Nurses European Crohn’s and Colitis Organisation [N-ECCO] Consensus Statements document addressing inflammatory bowel disease [IBD] nursing across Europe. N-ECCO continues to be an active member of the European Crohn’s and Colitis Organisation [ECCO], providing education and networking opportunities for nurses across Europe within three designated nursing sessions, N-ECCO Network Meeting, N-ECCO School and the N-ECCO Research Forum, in addition to e-learning and podcasts.

Introduction: One of the founding core activities of the European Crohn’s and Colitis Organisation [ECCO] is to educate gastroenterologists interested in inflammatory bowel disease [IBD]. The first ECCO Course on IBD for Junior Gastroenterologists was held in 2003, and will be held for the 15th time at the ECCO Congress 2017 in Barcelona. The first ECCO Educational Workshop took place in 2007, and since then 55 workshops have been organised in 40 countries around the globe, using the statements created in the ECCO evidence-based consensus processes as teaching material [for example the ECCO Crohn’s disease consensus1]. Finally, in 2013 ECCO launched e-CCO, the online learning platform with a mission to improve the care of patients with IBD in all its aspects by providing a comprehensive package of education for all health care professionals interested in IBD. The current e-CCO e-learning portfolio comprises 18 extensive e-courses based on the ECCO guidelines, and close to 40 original videos on basic IBD topics and current controversies in the treatment of IBD. The e-library is made up of presentations [on slides and on video] from the ECCO congresses, created and delivered by some of the foremost experts in IBD. With the increasing incidence of IBD in Europe and a growing interest in our activities, ECCO has decided to create the ECCO IBD Curriculum to serve as a backbone for its educational efforts, and also as a guide for interested gastroenterologists.

Introduction: Biosimilars of infliximab were first approved by the European Medicine Agency in 2013, based on pre-clinical studies on biosimilarity and on clinical data coming from two randomised controlled trials conducted in rheumatoid arthritis [RA] and ankylosing spondylitis [AS]. Initially the European Crohn’s Colitis Organisation [ECCO] raised some caution on the use of biosimilars.5 This cautious approach was also supported by several national inflammatory bowel disease [IBD] societies5–12 [Table 1]. An insufficient understanding of the characteristics and use of biosimilars became evident in a web survey among ECCO members in the same period.

The aim of this Consensus is to establish up-to-date standards for timing and methodology of Surgery in Crohn’s Disease.In cooperation with ESCP, ECCO Surgeons joined forces with Paediatricians as well and parts of this Guideline will cover paediatric content.  

This ECCO Topical Review of the European Crohn’s and Colitis Organisation [ECCO] focuses on the role of environmental factors with respect to the development of inflammatory bowel disease [IBD] as well as their influence on the course of established IBD. The objective was to reach expert consensus to provide evidence-based guidance for clinical practice.

This ECCO topical review of the European Crohn’s and Colitis Organisation [ECCO] focuses on the epidemiology, pathophysiology, diagnosis, management and outcome of the two most common forms of inflammatory bowel disease, Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, in elderly patients. The objective was to reach expert consensus to provide evidence-based guidance for clinical practice.

Background: This European Crohn’s and Colitis Organisation [ECCO] topical review focuses on the transition of adolescents with inflammatory bowel disease [IBD] from child-centred to adult-oriented care. The aim was to provide evidence-supported, expert consensus for health professionals taking part in the transition.

Methods: An online survey determined the areas of importance for health professionals involved in the transition of adolescents with IBD. Thereafter an expert panel of nine paediatric and five adult gastroenterologists was formed to identify the critical elements of the transition programme, and to prepare core messages defined as ‘current practice points’. There is limited literature about transition, therefore this review is mainly based on expert opinion and consensus, rather than on specific evidence.

Results: A total of 21 practice points were generated before the first [online] voting round. Practice points that reached >80% agreement were accepted, while those that did not reach 80% agreement were refined during a consensus meeting and subjected to voting. Ultimately, 14 practice points were retained by this review.

Conclusion: We present a consensus-based framework for transitional care in IBD that provides a guidance for clinical practice.

Progress in medicine has been made in the past primarily through the clinical experience of physicians and uncontrolled observations. With the advent of medical journals, knowledge dissemination and much of medical progress had been made possible through clinical reports and meticulous observations on cases or series of cases. This was true for many medical breakthroughs, including the initial paper by Burrill Crohn, Leon Ginzburg and Gordon Oppenheimer, who described their observations of a mere 14 surgical patients with ‘regional ileitis’, which later became known as Crohn’s disease.1 However in recent decades, the controlled clinical trial gained primacy as the holy grail of evidence-based medicine, and observational studies similarly became subject to stricter and preferably comparative statistical methodology in the forms of population-based studies, prospective cohorts or retrospective case-control studies. This trend, towards comparative and preferably controlled research methodology as the prevailing dogma, has led to case reports falling out of favour with the medical scientific community touting its potential caveats of chance associations and susceptibility to many uncontrolled confounders. Coupled with the fact that case reports may create less citation potential, which is necessary for a journal impact factor and citation index standing, case reports and case series have also found it increasingly difficult to be published.2 Indeed most leading gastroenterology journals, JCC included, now generally refrain from publishing case reports or small case series.