Search results for "Biological therapies"
showing 5 items of 5 documents
Laboratory Tests in Crohn’s Disease
2015
Laboratory tests are useful for diagnosing Crohn’s disease, assessing disease activity, identifying complications, and monitoring response to therapy. Their role has been considered limited in the past due to lack of specificity. The introduction of biological therapies in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) has renewed interest in inflammatory markers, especially C-reactive protein (CRP), given their potential to select responders to these treatments. There are several reasons why laboratory markers have been studied in IBD in the past decades: firstly, to gain an objective measurement of disease activity as symptoms are often subjective; secondly, to avoid invasive (endoscopic) procedures wh…
Severe asthma: One disease and multiple definitions
2021
Abstract Introduction There is, so far, no universal definition of severe asthma. This definition usually relies on: number of exacerbations, inhaled therapy, need for oral corticosteroids, and respiratory function. The use of such parameters varies in the different definitions used. Thus, according to the parameters chosen, each patient may result in having severe asthma or not. The aim of this study was to evaluate how the choice of a specific definition of severe asthma can change the allocation of patients. Methods Data collected from the Severe Asthma Network Italy (SANI) registry were analyzed. All the patients included were then reclassified according to the definitions of U-BIOPRED,…
Management of biological therapies for chronic plaque psoriasis during COVID-19 emergency in Italy
2020
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection, is creating an unprecedented global public health emergency with the continuous growth of infected individuals worldwide. Italy was one of the first European country to face the first wave of infection outside mainland China. The first case of COVID-19 was confirmed in Lombardy on February 20th , 2020, and subsequently, a rapid increase in the number of detected cases was observed, spreading through Italy and the rest of Europe.3 As of April 22nd , confirmed COVID-19 cases in Italy were 183,957.
Investigational agents for Crohn's disease.
2010
IMPORTANCE OF THE FIELD: Increased understanding of the biological mechanisms of Crohn's disease has opened the door to a large number of new molecules; some of these are approved for clinical use, while others remain under evaluation. In this review, we examine the clinical efficacy of all the new drugs that have been evaluated in controlled trials in the last 12 years. AREAS COVERED IN THIS REVIEW: Anti-TNF therapy has been reviewed briefly, given the many comprehensive reviews on this topic; attention is focused mainly on the other biological therapies. In assessing the clinical efficacy of these molecules, we consider only the remission rate, as this is considered the most meaningful en…
Novel cytokine-targeted therapies and intestinal inflammation
2009
Several cytokines have been identified as critical mediators of chronic inflammation in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and biological therapies that target these molecules have been developed during recent years. Thereby, anti-TNF agents have noticeably improved the treatment of patients with IBD in comparison to conventional therapy. Furthermore, initial clinical trials showed promising results with anti-IL-6 and anti-IL-12/IL-23 agents. In addition to these well-known mediators of IBD, various novel cytokines have been described as critical during the pathogenesis of IBD in recent experimental studies and therapeutic targeting of these cytokines could provide new strategies for human di…