The inflammatory bowel diseases (or I.B.D. )are crhonical diseases that cause inflammation of the intestines and don’t establish an increase of mortality, but due of they recurring and intermittent activity determine a great negative impact on the quality of the life and the social abitily of who is affected.

Although the diseases have some features in common, there are some important differences. Both interested young individuals , between 15 and 40 years old but Crohn's disease differs from ulcerative colitis in the areas of the bowel it involves - it most commonly affects the last part of the small intestine (called the terminal ileum) and parts of the large intestine whereas ulcerative colitis affects only the lining of the bowel and doesn’t involve the entire bowel wall.

They are rare and medical research hasn't determined yet what causes inflammatory bowel disease. They differs from the risk of surgery , who is higher in the Crohn's disease but surgical procedures for ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease are quite different.

In the case of ulcerative colitis, removal of the colon (large intestine) may be necessary.Their frequency is about 1-2‰ (or 100-200 cases every 100.000 inhabitants 100.000) but in Italy there aren’t studies adequately reliables. I

n Piemonte on 2004 there were registered more than 2.300 patients affected by I.B.D. and extending this research to all the Italian country we can estimate that there are about 100-150.000 patients affected by this diseases.