Letter: Short-term efficacy of tacrolimus in steroid-refractory ulcerative colitis

摘要

Sirs, We read the article by Schmidt et al. with great interest. They investigated the short-term efficacy of tacrolimus in 130 patients with steroid-refractory ulcerative colitis (UC). Median Lightiger score was 13 (range: 4-17) at baseline, and significantly decreased to 3 (range: 1-16) at week 4, and 3 (range: 0-14) at week 12. Clinical remission was achieved in 94 patients (72%) by week 12. On the other hand, 18 patients (14%) required colec-tomy. The authors also emphasized that concomitant thiopurine use was predictive of clinical remission and avoidance of surgery. These findings were very meaningful and showed the efficacy of tacrolimus therapy for severe UC in their real clinical experience.