Inflammatory Bowel Disease

The FDA has issued a safety alert warning patients and health care providers of a “rare risk of intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy” linked to thiopurine use.

Pretreatment with budesonide did not significantly influence engraftment among patients with ulcerative colitis who underwent fecal microbiota transplantation, with researchers reporting that clinical response appeared to be donor-dependent.

BOSTON — Chronic diarrhea is an “incredibly common” condition, with about one out of 20 patients presenting with symptoms, according to Brian E. Lacy, MD, PhD, FACG, a professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic.

Despite a class-wide black box warning for prescribing in the early setting, 31% of providers reported positioning Janus kinase inhibitors as first-line treatment among patients with severe ulcerative colitis, according to survey results.

In a Healio video exclusive, Edward V. Loftus Jr., MD, noted that although some concerns remain for switching patients between interchangeable biosimilars, data has continued to show acceptable outcomes as well as “increased access.”

If you see more than a few patients with inflammatory bowel disease, you likely already have been asked by a third-party payer to switch a patient’s adalimumab prescription from the reference product to a biosimilar.

The age of biosimilars has come for gastroenterology. This includes interchangeable products, three of which are now on the market. How this will impact patient care in the near and distant future is the subject of much speculation.

Induction and maintenance treatment with infliximab was more efficacious than vedolizumab in patients with Crohn’s disease, while efficacy was similar between the two therapies in patients with ulcerative colitis, according to data.

Female sex, smoking, Crohn’s disease and a history of surgery to treat inflammatory bowel disease were associated with an increased risk for developing extraintestinal manifestations of disease, according to research in Gastroenterology.

Once-daily Rinvoq 45 mg provided “rapid relief” of stool frequency and abdominal pain score within the first week of induction therapy in patients with moderately to severely active Crohn’s disease, according to a data analysis.