The clinical course of inflammatory bowel disease in elderly patients has been reviewed. The natural history of ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease in the elderly is similar to that in the young with the usual wide spectrum of severity of disease. Such inflammatory bowl disease responds well to medical treatment in the majority of elderly patients, and surgical intervention is only required rarely for complications or unresponsive disease. Reports of a more serious clinical course in older patients were not substantiated.
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