Postoperative Crohn’s disease: prevention and treatment

Abstract

Crohn’s disease is a chronic, relapsing–remitting inflammatory disease of the intestinal tract that commonly requires surgical treatment. Unfortunately, the majority of patients will ultimately develop postoperative disease recurrence and require subsequent surgery. A number of medications have been researched for the maintenance of postoperative remission. Of these, few have demonstrated consistent efficacy. A recently published randomized, controlled trial indicated that infliximab is effective in the maintenance of postoperative remission.

Keywords::

• 6-mercaptopurine
• aminosalicylate
• anti-TNF-α
• immunomodulator
• infliximab
• postoperative Crohn’s disease
• surgery

Financial & competing interests disclosure

Miguel Regueiro has served as a consultant for Abbott, Axcan, Centocor, Elan, Procter & Gamble, Salix, Shire and UCB. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.

Notes

Reproduced with permission from [15].