Maintenance therapy with azathioprine (AZA)/6-mercaptopurine (6-MP) in Crohn's disease (CD) reduces the risk of re-operation particularly in smokers

Background/Aim: Smoking has a key impact on the natural course of CD. Patients who smoke are more likely to develop clinical relapses, complications, operations and re-operations and to require immunosuppressant (IS). We aimed to asses the influence of smoking and IS on the risk of intestinal re-operation in CD. Patients/Methods: Medical charts of 563 patients have been analyzed retrospectively and patients were asked for smoking status after first surgery by standardized questionaires. From 254 cases with at least one resection, data for further analysis were available. Those patients were stratified into 4 gro…