Mesalamine Intolerance in Three Children with Crohn's Disease

To present the mesalamine-induced acute exacerbation of symptoms and inflammatory markers in children with Crohn's disease (CD).

Three children who presented with CD had acute exacerbation of colitis symptoms or elevated inflammatory markers when mesalamine was added to treatment while tapering/ceasing steroid treatment. While on steroid treatment, the patients maintained clinical and laboratory remission, but with the initiation of mesalamine treatment, they had abdominal pain and bloody mucoid diarrhoea and/or elevation of white blood cell count, C-reactive protein level and erythrocyte sedimentation rate. Bacterial pathogens were excluded from the urine, throat and blood cultures, parasites with stool examination, viral pathogens with serology. Within 3-7 days after the mesalamine treatment had been stopped, the patients showed improvement of colitis symptoms and normalisation of white blood cell count, C-reactive protein level and erythrocyte sedimentation rate.

In this study mesalamine mimicked CD relapse in children with CD while tapering or after stopping steroid treatment. Awareness of this side effect of mesalamine could prevent a misdiagnosis of steroid dependency.