Adalimumab and Azathioprine Combination Therapy for Crohn's Disease: A Shining Diamond?
The management of Crohn's disease [CD] patients has been rapidly evolving in recent years. Besides the development of new drugs with new mechanisms of action for patients who do not respond to conventional therapies, several studies have been conducted to evaluate the best strategies to optimise response and remission.1,2 It is currently clear that the combination of infliximab and azathioprine is significantly more effective in inducing and maintaining clinical response and remission in naive CD patients compared with infliximab and azathioprine monotherapies.1 This combination is also effective in reducing the immunogenicity of infliximab,3 thus reducing the risk of loss of response over time. Matsumoto et al. 4 reported the results of a randomised open label trial [DIAMOND] to evaluate whether the combination of adalimumab and azathioprine may be more effective than adalimumab monotherapy in inducing and maintaining clinical remission, and endoscopic response, at Weeks 26 and 52; 167 CD patients were randomised to Corresponding author: Prof. Silvio Danese, PhD, Department of Biomedical Sciences, Humanitas University, Via Manzoni 113, 20089 Rozzano, Milan, Italy. Tel. +390282244771; fax: +390282242591; email: sdanese{at}hotmail.com
Journal of Crohn's colitis