New Treatment for Crohn’s Disease

Certolizumab pegol effectively treats the symptoms of Crohn’s disease and produced a nearly 50-percent remission rate at six months, says a U.S. study.

Mayo Clinic researcher William Sandborn led the two-armed study, which is the first clinical trial for Crohn’s disease to run longer than 12 weeks.

The researchers first studied 662 adults with moderate to severe Crohn’s disease in a placebo-controlled trial.

After six weeks, 35 percent of the certolizumab group experienced an improvement in their symptoms compared to 27 percent of patients on placebo.

The second study involved 668 patients, 428 of whom had experienced improved symptoms on certolizumab after six weeks.

After six months of maintenance therapy on the medication, 63 percent of patients who received certolizumab had improved symptoms and 48 percent were in clinical remission, compared to no remissions and a 29 percent improved symptom rate in the placebo group.

Certolizumab blocks tumor necrosis factor and, like all drugs of this class, lowers resistance to infection.

The drug has not yet been approved by the Food and Drug Administration, and the researchers are currently conducting in trials that study the drug’s effects beyond six months.

The research is published in the July 18 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.