Ulcerative Colitis Treatment Reduces Need for Surgery by Almost Half

A new study led by Mayo Clinic researchers has found that ulcerative colitis patients had a 41 percent reduction in colectomy after a year when treated with infliximab, according to a study published in the October 2009 issue of Gastroenterology.

Ulcerative colitis , an inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) that causes chronic inflammation of the colon, is characterized by abdominal pain and diarrhea. Like Crohn’s disease , another common IBD, ulcerative colitis can be debilitating and often lead to colectomy or surgical removal of the colon.

In this multi-center, international study, 728 patients received placebo or infliximab (5 or 10 mg/kg) for 46 weeks and were monitored for hospitalization or surgical outcomes. Eighty-seven percent (630 of 728) had complete follow-up for the endpoint of whether or not they had colectomy, while the remaining 13 percent (98 of 728) of patients had follow-up for less then a year, with a median follow-up of 6.2 months in these patients. The research showed that treatment with infliximab at 0, 2 and 6 and then every 8 weeks reduced the incidence of colectomy through 54 weeks by 41 percent in outpatients with moderately-to-severe active ulcerative colitis.

“One of the most feared outcomes for ulcerative colitis patients is surgical removal of the colon,” says William Sandborn, M.D ., a Mayo Clinic gastroenterologist and lead author of the study. “Our research hopes to provide other treatment solutions for patients beyond surgery.”

Besides Dr. Sandborn, the research team included: Kevin Horgan, Jiandong Lu, Jewel Johanns, Centocor Research & Development, Inc., Malvern, Penn.; Bruce E. Sands, Gastrointestinal Unit, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Mass.; Paul Rutgeerts, Department of Gastroenterology, University Hospital Gasthuisberg, Leuven, Belgium; Stephen B. Hanauer, Division of Gastroenterology, University of Chicago, Chicago, Ill.; Daniel Rachmilewitz, Division of Medicine, Shaare Zedak Medical Center, Jerusalem, Israel; Jean Frédéric Colombel, Department of Hepatogastroenterology, Hopital Claude Huriez and Centre d’Investigation Clinique, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Lille, Lille, France; Walter Reinisch, Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Univ Klinik Innere Medizin IV, AKH Wien, Vienna, Austria; Willem J.S. de Villier, Division of Digestive Diseases and Nutrition, Department of Medicine, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky; Brian G. Feagan, Robarts Research Institute, The University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada; Gary R. Lichtenstein, Department of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Allan Olson, R. W. Johnson Pharmaceutical Research and Development, San Diego, California; Daniel Present, Division of Gastroenterology, Department of Medicine, Mount Sinai Medical Center, New York, New York.

Below is a link to a video with Dr. Sandborn discussing the study.

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