Influence of steroid treatment's duration in patients with active Crohn's disease.

Steroids are very useful drugs in the treatment of active Crohn's disease (CD), but clinical relapses after steroid withdrawal may be very high. We investigated the efficacy of two steroid regimens of different duration in inducing remission and in maintaining it after drug suspension. Patients with active CD were randomly assigned to scheme A, lasting 7 weeks (27 patients), or to scheme B, lasting 15 weeks (27 patients). Remission rates at the end of the treatment were 81% for scheme A and 85% for scheme B. Relapse rates at 6 months after stopping the treatment were 50% (11 patients) and 52% (12 patients), respectively. Remission rates seem not to be influenced by the duration of the treatment, but patients recently treated with steroids showed a higher relapse rate if they received the short-duration treatment.