It can occur in different ways and with common symptoms, even to other diseases, so it is not always diagnosed immediately. Crohn’s disease is a chronic and acute inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract. About 70,000 Italians suffer from it. The most affected are young people between 20 and 30 years (rarely the disease occurs in the over 65), but there are also cases that occur even in children and adolescents. Symptoms include abdominal pain, cramps, weight loss, fatigue, prolonged diarrhea and fever. To date, there are numerous drugs on the market to treat this disorder. From now on, a new biological drug with a new mechanism of action, the Ustekinumab, is also available in Italy. We talked about it with Professor Silvio Danese, head of the Center for Intestinal Chronic Inflammatory Diseases of Humanitas.

The exams

Laboratory tests, CTs and MRIs for diagnosis, but also colonoscopies and gastroscopies, which serve to better locate the disease along the intestinal tract. Once the diagnosis of Crohn’s disease has been established, doctors have numerous new drugs on the market to treat this disorder, including cortisone, immunosuppressants and biological drugs, in particular infliximab, adalimumab and vedolizumab. A new biological drug with a new mechanism of action, Ustekinumab, is now also available in Italy. Scientific data have shown that the action of this drug is faster in the short term and that the effect lasts longer over time: in 75% of patients undergoing therapy, the disease has been in remission after two years.

The opinion of Humanitas

“Today the greatest need still not satisfied by people with Crohn’s disease – explained Professor Danese – is to combine a sudden improvement, which can solve the painful acute phase, with the effectiveness maintained in the long run, to allow the patient to feel good over the years without having to deal with relapses and changes in treatment. This new therapeutic option opens for the first time a wide horizon so far unexplored, that of the longest period free from disease ever observed so far. “Compared to the most common drugs to date, the anti-TNF – added Danese – Ustekinumab brings an improvement as early as the third week since the beginning of therapy. And a study has recently shown that its effects last up to three years from the start of treatment.