Inflammatory bowel disease, notably ulcerative colitis (UC) or Crohn disease (CD), is basically benign, but sometimes develops into serious or fatal cancer. While the primary therapies are medical, such as pharmacotherapy and dietetic modification, intractable, serious, and cancerous cases can require surgical intervention. Surgery represents only one of the treatment options, but prediction of whether UC and CD are likely to progress to serious conditions and determination of when to undertake surgery is essential. Various surgical procedures have been developed over time, and the postoperative results are now generally good. Regarding laparoscopic surgeries, relatively few cases have been accumulated, and addressing the indications and limitations is premature at this point. However, this procedure is likely to fulfill a central role in surgical treatment strategies and represent a major benefit to patients. This paper discusses surgical treatment indications and methods for UC and CD, and explains the practical aspects of laparoscopic surgery, which has made remarkable progress in recent years, for such cases.