| Theme | "Early Colorectal Cancer" and "Intestine", Road to future | |
|---|---|---|
| Title | Present and possible future concepts concerning Crohn's disease | |
| Publish Date | 2016/01 | |
| Author | Yasuo Suzuki | Department of Internal Medicine, Sakura Medical Center, Toho University |
| [ Summary ] | The greatest achievement in Crohn disease (CD) treatment since the past 20 years is the remarkably good outcome of anti-tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α antibody treatment. Anti-TNF-α antibody has already been widely used as the most important CD treatment agent. Currently, achieving mucosal healing is the standard treatment goal that could hardly be achieved by treatment methods other than that using the anti-TNF-α antibody. In the near future, we cannot expect new therapies with therapeutic effects better than those of the anti-TNF-α antibody therapy；hence, we must maximize the effects of the anti-TNF-α antibody therapy by adjusting the dosage by monitoring the blood levels. For CD patients who are resistant to the anti-TNF-α antibody therapy or show loss of response during the maintenance treatment, anti-integrin antibody or new medicines targeting inflammatory cytokines other than TNF-α will need to be used. Tailor-made therapies for individual CD patients who have variably different pathological conditions can be used. In the field of diagnostics, the establishment of new imaging methods that can not only diagnose whole intestinal inflammatory conditions but also accurately determine the trends and long-term prognosis of the disease course, as well as new diagnostic methods that can differentiate the phenotype of CD and use various biomarkers for genetic diagnosis and intestinal flora analysis is expected. |
|