Overview of Inflammatory Bowel Disease - Crohn’s Disease and Ulcerative Colitis

Austin Xu Grade 10, University of Toronto Schools, Toronto, Ontario Canada

Overview of Inflammatory Bowel Disease - Crohn’s Disease and Ulcerative Colitis Austin Xu Grade 10, University of Toronto Schools, Toronto, Ontario Canada Abstract   Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) describes two conditions that are classified by the inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract (McDowell et al., 2023). Inflammatory bowel disease is primarily characterised by the chronic inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract, sometimes associated with acute periods of active symptoms and periods of remission when symptoms are absent (McDowell et al., 2023). IBD is divided into two diseases, Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, which differ in the part of the GI tract that they infect (McDowell et al., 2023). While Crohn's disease includes inflammation of the entire gut, ulcerative colitis is usually limited to the colon (McDowell et al., 2023).  Text