Abstract
Crohn’s disease involves different gastrointestinal sites and may be characterized by high rates of strictures and penetrating complications. The present study applied the newly described Montreal schema of classification to a large, prospectively accumulated clinical database. In addition, age dependence was evaluated at diagnosis, with regard to disease location and disease behaviour. There were 1015 consecutively evaluated patients (449 male and 566 female). Disease was most often localized in the ileocolon and was usually complex with stricture formation or penetrating complications. For both sexes, with increasing age at diagnosis, Crohn’s disease was less extensive, more often localized in the colon alone and characterized by less complex disease behaviour, especially with less penetrating disease complications. Using the Montreal classification for Crohn’s disease, these results define the clinical features in a large, single clinician database and demonstrate age dependence in the phenotypic clinical expression of Crohn’s disease.