炎症性肠病(inflammatory bowel disease，IBD)包括溃疡性结肠炎(ulcerative colitis，UC)和克罗恩病(Crohn’s disease，CD)。随着对肠道微生物群在IBD发病机制中作用的认识不断深入，近年来益生菌广泛应用于IBD治疗。大量临床试验结果表明，益生菌治疗IBD的疗效主要体现在对UC和贮袋炎的治疗，对CD的疗效不明确。益生菌治疗IBD可能通过促进肠道微生物群平衡、改善肠道屏障功能、调节肠道黏膜免疫及营养物质代谢等途径。

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) mainly consists of Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC). Rapid progress has been made to understand the interaction between the gut microbiota and IBD, which provides the rationale for administering probiotic agents in the medical treatments of IBD. It is now widely accepted that probiotic therapy is a helpful option for UC and pouchitis, but stays controversial for CD. Probiotics help to alter the gut dysbiosis, improve the function of mucosal barrier, stimulate the development of innate and adaptive immunity and modulate bacterial metabolites. Although probiotics have shown promise in the treatment of IBD, further controlled studies, enrolling larger numbers of patients, are needed to identify the therapeutic role of probiotics.