Prognosis after resection of chronic regional ileitis.

Recurrence of the disease after resection of the diseased bowel is a well-recognized complication in the surgical treatment of regional ileitis. Published estimates of the recurrence rate, however, vary widely. Part of this variability is due to different lengths of follow-up, and part to the use of different definitions of recurrence and different methods of statistical analysis. These factors prevent valid comparisons between recurrence rates in different types of disease or with different types of treatment. In this paper, we put forward three possible definitions of recurrence and show in a series of cases that, as expected, the recurrence rate decreases as more stringent definitions are used. We have analysed the data by a standard actuarial method which makes the greatest possible use of the available information and enables the probability ofrecurrence in a given time after operation to be estimated. Using these definitions and this method of analysis in a prospective survey it should be possible to obtain comparisons between the results of a single treatment in different types of disease and between the results of different treatments in a homogeneous series of cases.