Minimally invasive surgery for paediatric inflammatory bowel disease: Personal experience and literature review

The incidence of paediatric inflammatory bowel disease (PIBD) has dramatically increased in the last 20 years. Although first reported in mid 1970s', diagnostic laparoscopy has started to be routinely adopted in paediatric surgical practice since late 1990s'. Minimally invasive surgery was first limited to diagnostic purposes. After 2002 it was also applied to the radical treatment of PIBD, either Crohn's disease (CD) or Ulcerative colitis. During the last decade minimally invasive approaches to PIBD have gained popularity and have recently became the "gold standard" for the treatment of such invalidating and troublesome chronic diseases. The authors describe and track the historical evolution of minimally invasive surgery for PIBD and address all available opportunities, including most recent advancements such as robotic surgery, single port approaches and minimally invasive treatment of perianal fistulising CD. A systematic review of all series of PIBD treated with minimally invasive approaches published so far is provided in order to determine the incidence and type of patients' complications reported up to present days. The authors also describe their experience with minimally invasive surgery for PIBD and will report the results of 104 laparoscopic procedures performed in a series of 61 patients between January 2006 and December 2014.