Combination therapy of infliximab and thalidomide for refractory entero-Behcet's disease: a case report

BMC Gastroenterology

Case Report

Zelong Han¹  Aimin Li¹  Yue Li¹  Side Liu¹  Zhihui Mo¹  Wei Zhang¹  Xianfei Wang² 

[1] Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Gastroenterology, Department of Gastroenterology, Nanfang Hospital, Southern Medical University, 510515, Guangzhou, China;Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Gastroenterology, Department of Gastroenterology, Nanfang Hospital, Southern Medical University, 510515, Guangzhou, China;Department of Gastroenterology, Affiliated Hospital of North Sichuan Medical College, Nanchong, China;

关键词: Entero-Behcet's disease;    Infliximab;    Thalidomide;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-230X-13-167

 received in 2013-07-20, accepted in 2013-11-27,  发布年份 2013

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundBehcet's disease (BD) is a systemic inflammatory disease with the histopathological features of leukocytoclastic vasculitis that affects nearly all organs and systems. When it involves the intestine, it is called entero-Behcet's disease (entero-BD).Case presentationHere we described a 23-year-old man with entero-BD refractory to conventional therapies who responded well to the combination therapy of infliximab, an anti-tumor-necrosis-factor (TNF)-alpha antibody, and thalidomide. After combination treatment, the patient’s symptoms improved greatly and his Crohn's Disease Activity Index (CDAI) score decreased from 344 to 52 points, accompanied by a body weight increase from 53 kg to 64 kg. A follow-up endoscopy performed 10 weeks after the treatment showed significant improvement and the patient's multiple ulcers had healed well.ConclusionThe combination therapy of infliximab and thalidomide appears to be clinically effective in a patient with refractory entero-BD. However, further studies need to be performed to evaluate the efficacy of this combination therapy.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Li et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2013. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.