Azathioprine in inflammatory bowel disease.

• Autor(a) principal: Leite, Sílvia
• Data de Publicação: 2009
• Outros Autores: Ribeiro, José Manuel, Lima, Salomé C, Barroso, Sónia, Cotter, José
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: https://www.actamedicaportuguesa.com/revista/index.php/amp/article/view/1686

Characterisation of an Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) population treated with azathioprine (AZA) and evaluation of AZA safety and efficacy.Retrospective analysis of IBD patients attending our Gastroenterology department in a six months period. Results: In 137 IBD patients, 30 began AZA treatment; 18 Crohn's disease (CD) and 12 ulcerative colitis (UC). Mean time of treatment was 3.2 years. The reason for treatment was: 76.6% steroid dependent or steroid refractory (SD/SR) disease, 10% prevention of postoperative recurrence in CD, 10% fistulising CD and 3.3% extra intestinal manifestation. Adverse events occurred in 33.3% patients, requiring discontinuation of treatment in 13.3%. Clinical remission rate was 75% in the 28 patients that completed six months treatment (p equal 0.0013): 76.5% for SD/SR disease; 100% for prevention of postoperative recurrence and extra intestinal manifestation; 0% for fistulising CD. The proportion of patients remaining in remission at 12, 24, 36 and 48 months treatment were 87.5% (p lower 0,001), 46.7%, 45.5% e 14.3% (p higher 0,05), respectively.Azathioprine can be considered safe in a long term treatment and showed efficacy in induction and maintaining of remission at 12 months.