Crohn's disease arthritis treated with infliximab: An open trial in four patients

Four patients with Crohn's disease arthritis, who were unresponsive to conv entional treatment, improved very rapidly and safely with the use of inflix imab, the chimeric antibody directed against tumor necrosis factor alpha. T he patients were able to stop or significantly decrease other antirheumatic medications after the infliximab infusions. It is Likely that tumor necros is factor plays a major role in the arthritis as well as the bowel involvem ent that is seen in Crohn's disease. Suppression of this cytokine may effec tively ameliorate Crohn's disease arthritis in some patients.