TY - JOUR
T1 - Immunotherapy in inflammatory bowel disease
AU - Sachar, D. B.
AU - Present, D. H.
PY - 1978
Y1 - 1978
N2 - Immunosuppressive drugs are potentially dangerous. Their routine use in ulcerative colitis, a premalignant and surgically curable disease, is not advisable except as a short-term measure in patients intolerant of steroids or sulfasalazine and unwilling or unable to accept colectomy. They have a better-defined role in Crohn's disease, on the other hand, since this condition is incurable and potentially more mutilating. Here they have been reliably shown to have a steroid-sparing effect, to be at least as beneficial as sulfasalazine, and in some cases to produce healing of chronic enterocutaneous and perianal fistulae. However, the accurate prediction of which patients will benefit from azathioprine and which patients will not remains an as yet unfulfilled challenge for the future.
AB - Immunosuppressive drugs are potentially dangerous. Their routine use in ulcerative colitis, a premalignant and surgically curable disease, is not advisable except as a short-term measure in patients intolerant of steroids or sulfasalazine and unwilling or unable to accept colectomy. They have a better-defined role in Crohn's disease, on the other hand, since this condition is incurable and potentially more mutilating. Here they have been reliably shown to have a steroid-sparing effect, to be at least as beneficial as sulfasalazine, and in some cases to produce healing of chronic enterocutaneous and perianal fistulae. However, the accurate prediction of which patients will benefit from azathioprine and which patients will not remains an as yet unfulfilled challenge for the future.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=0018146953&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/S0025-7125(16)31830-2
DO - 10.1016/S0025-7125(16)31830-2
M3 - Article
C2 - 414028
AN - SCOPUS:0018146953
SN - 0025-7125
VL - 62
SP - 173
EP - 183
JO - Medical Clinics of North America
JF - Medical Clinics of North America
IS - 1
ER -