GM-CSF treatment for Crohn's disease: a stimulating new therapy?

Crohn's disease (CD) has been classically viewed as an overactive intestinal immune response to the normal constituents of the gut flora. Most therapeutic strategies to date have tried to suppress this overactive adaptive immune response. Recently, a novel, rather alternative therapeutic strategy has been proposed, wherein the approach is to stimulate the innate immune system with growth factors. This review will take a closer look at this unconventional hypothesis and the data that support it, and will place the information in the context of some of the other biological and experimental therapies currently under consideration for the treatment of CD.