Medical treatment of Crohn's disease. Controlled trials.

From controlled studies only, the authors state the true position of medical therapeutics for the Crohn's disease when it attacks the small intestine and the colon. Sulfasalazine remains the first rate medicine, essentially when the ileum and colon, or colon alone, becomes affected. Metronidazole seems as effective, indeed slightly more so. Corticotherapy should be kept for patients who do not react to sulfasalazine or whose disease is, at the onset, particularly active. The duration of the corticotherapy should be the shortest possible. Immunosuppressors do not seem to be of any help in acute phase and their effect shows only after several months. Their main interest resides in the possibility of reducing or stopping the corticosteroids treatment. There is not enough information about the other medications that have been the tried to draw any conclusions. The use of pure 5-aminosalicylic acid or associated to another vector such as sulfapyridine, will probably be an important therapeutical progress.