[Treatment of inflammatory bowel diseases]

In addition to immunosuppressive drugs and anti-TNF, there are a number of new options in the treatment of inflammatory bowel diseases. Vedolizumab has been approved by the FDA and EMA and has demonstrated utility both in the treatment of ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn's disease (CD), even in anti-TNF refractory patients. Other monoclonal antibodies with different targets such as PF-005447659 (antiMAd-CAM1), ustekinumab (anti-IL23/IL12) or MEDI2070 (anti-IL23) have shown promising results in distinct clinical scenarios. Mongersen (antisense oligonucleotide anti-Smad7) and oznimod (an SP-1 modulator) are new alternatives with proven efficacy in clinical trials in CD and UC, respectively. Some data suggest that faecal microbiota transplantation could be efficacious in individual patients, although controlled data do not show clear differences with placebo. Autologous stem-cell transplantation has shown long-term efficacy in "ultra-refractory" CD. The number of possible treatments is constantly increasing, and future research should focus both on the selection of the most appropriate treatment for any given patient and on comparative trials between options.