Antibacterial therapy for Crohn's disease : A review emphasizing therapy directed against mycobacteria

The most commonly used antibiotics in Crohn's disease are nitroimidazoles and macrolides often combined with corticosteroids or sulfasalazine. There has been interest in a mycobacterial involvement in Crohn's disease since its earliest description. It is not recognized that Mycobacterium a...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Digestive diseases and sciences 2000-03, Vol.45 (3), p.445-456
Main Authors: HULTEN, K, ALMASHHRAWI, A, EL-ZAATARI, F. A. K, GRAHAM, D. Y
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Anti-Bacterial Agents - therapeutic use
Antibacterial agents
Antibiotics. Antiinfectious agents. Antiparasitic agents
Biological and medical sciences
Clinical Trials as Topic
Crohn Disease - drug therapy
Crohn Disease - microbiology
Humans
Medical sciences
Paratuberculosis - drug therapy
Pharmacology. Drug treatments
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The most commonly used antibiotics in Crohn's disease are nitroimidazoles and macrolides often combined with corticosteroids or sulfasalazine. There has been interest in a mycobacterial involvement in Crohn's disease since its earliest description. It is not recognized that Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis, a proven but uncommon cause of human disease, is widespread in the human food chain especially in dairy products and beef. M. paratuberculosis has been identified in tissues from a higher proportion of Crohn's disease patients than controls, suggesting that it may be one of the causes of Crohn's disease. We review the large number of antibiotic trials in Crohn's disease. Although studies have been performed with many different protocols and variations in the definition of success, preliminary reports of multiple drug therapies are encouraging. Nevertheless, large-well designed preferably placebo-controlled studies are needed before one could recommend such therapy.
ISSN:0163-2116
1573-2568
DOI:10.1023/A:1005453409445