Three New Treatments Bring Good News for People With Crohn's

The first study was conducted to analyze the European National Crohn's Observational (ENCORE) registry. ENCORE is the European version of the Therapy, Resource, Evaluation, and Assessment Tool (TREAT) used in the United States. ENCORE was developed to provide a tool for collecting long-term safety information from patients who had Crohn's disease and who had been treated with biological therapies, such as infliximab, or nonbiological therapies. Of the 2,008 participants who enrolled in the study, 1,166 had received infliximab. The researchers conducted a median follow-up study after about 13 months. The researchers found that there was a slightly higher overall incidence of adverse effects in the group of patients who had been treated with infliximab. This group also included a slightly higher rate of infections. The authors pointed out that one plausible explanation for the slightly higher rates of adverse effects and infections could be due to the fact that patients who have Crohn's disease and receive infliximab tended to already be pretty sick when the treatments began and were likely taking steroids and immunosuppressants.