Severe ulcerative colitis: present medical treatment strategies

A total of 15-19% of ulcerative colitis patients have a severe attack at some time during their illness. As a consequence of its high associated mortality and morbidity rates, a close collaboration between gastroenterologists and surgeons in their management is mandatory, in order to define, as best as possible, the timing of surgery (i.e., colectomy) when patients fail to respond to medical treatment or worsen despite optimal medical treatment. The first step in medical treatment consists of using intravenous corticosteroids as they have been demonstrated to reduce drastically the mortality rates. However, at 1 year approximately 25% of patients become corticosteroid dependent and 30% require colectomy, which can consistently affect their quality of life. Therefore, intravenous ciclosporin has been proposed as a rescue therapy, with a further improvement of short-term efficacy and reduction of surgery requirement. Nevertheless, its use is associated with a risk of toxicity and intravenous ciclosporin is not easy to use in non-specialised centres. In addition, long-term studies suggest that colectomy is often only delayed and relapse frequent. Consequently, some authors evaluate the potential use of infliximab. Available data are encouraging, reporting a significant short-term reduction in colectomy rate. Nevertheless, additional trials are required to better define the more effective and safe treatment option(s), for both the short- and long-term, in this patient setting; a question addressed in ongoing trials.