Crohn’s disease is characterised by inflammation of the digestive tract and can impact a person’s quality of life with symptoms that include stomach pain, diarrhoea, weight loss and fatigue.
It is typically treated with a “step-up” approach, starting with milder drugs before advanced therapy like Infliximab.
Despite its effectiveness, it was typically reserved for patients with frequent flare-ups due to past concerns about cost and side-effects, including a higher risk of infections from immune suppression.
But, a PROFILE trial, which followed 386 newly diagnosed Crohn’s patients, compared the typical approach with a new treatment of giving Infliximab immediately.
It found patients receiving early effective therapy had higher quality of life scores, made less use of steroid medication, had a lower number of serious infections and a lower number of hospitalisations.
Prof Miles Parkes, who led the trial, said the findings using the new approach marked a turning point in how Crohn’s disease should be managed.
With about 190,000 people in the UK living with the disease and 10,000 diagnosed annually, the early treatment method could save the NHS as much as £20m each year, said Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (CUH).
It wants national reimbursement guidelines to be updated to encourage more widespread use of the treatment. NHS England has been contacted for comment.