Which treatment approaches are promising from today’s perspective? | Is Crohn’s disease curable?

Which treatment approaches are promising from today’s perspective?

In recent years, intensive research has been conducted into new therapeutic options for Crohn’s disease. The main focus has been on the development of new so-called biologicals. These are drugs that are produced by other organisms (mostly bacteria).

Most recently, the integrin antibody vedolizumab was approved, which has a different mechanism of action than all other antibodies previously approved for chronic inflammatory bowel disease. New drugs from this group of active ingredients can be expected in the future. Compounds such as Ustekinumab or Etrolizumab are still being tested, and in some countries are already being used for treatment.

However, even these new active ingredients are only expected to treat the disease symptomatically. The so-called “stool transplantation” pursues a completely different approach. Here, purified stool from a healthy donor is introduced into the patient’s intestine (by capsule or probe).

The hypothesis behind this is that the damaged intestinal flora of the CED patient is thereby rebalanced. In rare cases, a cure for the disease would theoretically be conceivable. However, the procedure is still in its infancy and extensive tests are still pending.

What is the current life expectancy for Crohn’s disease?

In general, chronic inflammatory bowel diseases such as Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis have little or no negative impact on life expectancy. This means that those affected generally live just as long as healthy people. This applies as long as the disease is treated by a specialist.It is therefore important for those affected to take their own treatment seriously, to seek medical treatment and to take the prescribed medication as directed by the doctor.

On the one hand, this can reduce the likelihood of typical late complications such as constrictions in the bowel or fistulas, which are not life-threatening but severely restrict the quality of life. On the other hand, good treatment also reduces the probability of the occurrence of rare complications that can be acutely life-threatening. These include, for example, the so-called toxic megacolon or an intestinal perforation.