Prevention of recurrence after surgery for Crohn's disease: efficacy of infliximab.

After surgery for Crohn's disease (CD), early endoscopic lesions are frequently observed despite no symptomatic recurrence. The severity of lesions found at postoperative endoscopy is reported to be a strong predictive factor for future clinical recurrence. If endoscopic lesions in the early postoperative period can be reduced with medications, symptomatic recurrence will likely be delayed and decreased. Before the introduction of biologic therapies, various medications were used for the maintenance of clinical remission after surgery; however, few demonstrated consistent efficacy. Infliximab is a recombinant anti-tumor necrosis factor-α antibody. Although infliximab is one of the most effective medications in the management of CD, its efficacy for early endoscopic lesions after surgery has not yet been assessed. The author and colleagues recently conducted a prospective study in order to investigate the impact of infliximab on early endoscopic lesions after resection for CD. We found that infliximab therapy showed clear suppressive effects on clinical and endoscopic disease activity in patients with early endoscopic lesions after resection.