[Chronic inflammatory bowel disease: transition from pediatric to adult care].

Children and adolescents with inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) are a group of patients with increasingly special health care needs. Transition from a pediatric and adolescent healthcare system into an adult medicine setting may be difficult but nevertheless is very important to ensure physiological development of adolescent patients and of the continuity of their medical treatment. Transition has shown to be a challenge for pediatricians and adult doctors as well. In Germany within the healthcare system there are no special structures established to organize and optimize transition. The German Society for Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition and the German Society of Internal Medicine have founded a working group to proceed the process of transition of young patients with IBD within the german health care.