[TNF-alpha blocking therapy in chronic inflammatory bowel disease].

The introduction of TNF-alpha blocking therapy has produced a dramatic change in the treatment of therapy resistant patients with inflammatory bowel disease. Both infliximab and adalimumab are effective in moderately severe and severe Crohn's disease. Besides, infliximab is potent in the remission and its sustaining in ulcerative colitis. However, among therapy resistant individuals, 20-30 percents of patients with Crohn's disease and 30-40 percents of patients with ulcerative colitis do not respond to these treatments. To date, no comparative study between the two drugs has been carried out and the clinical trials can not be directly compared to each others, still, on the basis of general considerations, there is no essential difference in the effectiveness between the two treatments.