Transmural or mucosal healing in Crohn´s disease. Which is the goal to be pursued?

In their original report of regional ileitis, Crohn, Ginzburg and Oppenheimer already described that inflammation involved not only the ileal mucosa: "the submucosal and, to a much lesser extent, the muscular layers of the bowel are the seat of marked inflammatory hyperplastic and exudative changes", they wrote 1. Ninety years later it is well established that the inflammatory process that characterizes Crohn´s disease (CD) involves all the layers of the intestinal wall; this fact is directly related with the development of progressive digestive tract damage related to disabling complications such as strictures, fistulae, perforation, and perianal or abdominal abscesses.