You are here

Article Text

Article menu
Download PDFPDF
Therapy update
Cyclosporin for refractory ulcerative colitis
  1. C G Loftus,
  2. E V Loftus Jr,
  3. W J Sandborn
  1. Inflammatory Bowel Disease Clinic, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, USA.
  1. Correspondence to:
    Dr W J Sandborn, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Mayo Clinic, 200 First Street SW, Rochester, Minnesota 55905, USA;
    sandborn.william{at}mayo.edu

https://doi.org/10.1136/gut.52.2.172

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    Approximately 15% of patients with ulcerative colitis will have a severe attack requiring hospitalisation for intravenous steroids at some stage in their illness.1 Sixty per cent of patients treated with corticosteroids will be symptom free by the end of five days, 15% will have significant improvement, and 25% will not improve. Those who fail to improve may be treated with intravenous cyclosporin or undergo colectomy.

    EFFICACY OF INTRAVENOUS CYCLOSPORIN IN SEVERE ULCERATIVE COLITIS

    There have been four controlled studies of intravenous cyclosporin in patients with severe ulcerative colitis. Of 20 patients reported by Lichtiger et al, nine were randomised to receive placebo and 11 to receive cyclosporin 4 mg/kg/day as a continuous infusion for 14 days.2 Nine of 11 cyclosporin treated patients (82%) responded compared with none of the placebo treated patients. Those who responded were continued on oral cyclosporin 8 mg/kg/day. At six months, 5/11 cyclosporin treated patients (45%) maintained a …

    View Full Text