The development of a stepwise therapy, as detailed below, can be administered to the mostly young patients with Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis on an out-patient basis and appropriate to their needs. This is true not only for the activity of the disease, but also for extraintestinal manifestations. The numerous variations in the stepwise anti-inflammatory therapy of chronic inflammatory bowel disease, but also in the substitution therapy of deficiency states and the therapy of accompanying extraintestinal diseases provide the gastroenterologist with the possibility of a long-term treatment tailored to the needs of the individual patient.