LETTER

Infliximab as a treatment for systemic amyloidosis associated with Crohn’s disease

M Iizuka, S Konno, Y Horie, H Itou, K Shindo, S Watanabe

Department of Internal Medicine, Akita University School of Medicine, Akita, Japan

Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Dr M Iizuka
Department of Internal Medicine, Akita University School of Medicine, 1-1-1 Hondo, Akita 010-8543, Japan; maiizuka@doc.med.akita-u.ac.jp

Keywords: Crohn’s disease; infliximab; amyloidosis; extraintestinal complications

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Systemic AA amyloidosis is a serious and potentially fatal complication of Crohn’s disease.¹ This serious complication is associated with approximately 0.9–2.5% of patients with Crohn’s disease but renal failure due to renal amyloidosis is one of the most common causes of death for patients with Crohn’s disease.² Although drugs such as azathioprine, colchicines, and dimethylsulphoxide are suggested to delay the progression of renal amyloidosis, the efficacy of these drugs on renal amyloidosis has not been fully elucidated.² Infliximab is a chimeric anti-tumour necrosis factor (TNF-) monoclonal antibody. This drug has been proven to induce clinical response and remission in Crohn’s disease patients with rapid onset of mucosal healing, and improve perianal disease, thus increasing quality of life.³ Recent studies provided evidence that infliximab also improved the extraintestinal complications of Crohn’s disease, such as spondyloarthropathy⁴ and psoriasis.⁵ With regard to amyloidosis, recent studies demonstrated the efficacy of infliximab on secondary . . . [Full text of this article]

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