Thalidomide for treatment of intestinal involvement of juvenile-onset Behçet disease.
BACKGROUND
Thalidomide has been identified and its anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory properties clarified. This report expands our report of 2 entero-Behçet disease children who developed significant steroid toxicity and improved dramatically with thalidomide.


METHODS
We studied the effects of thalidomide in 7 juvenile-onset patients with severe, recurrent intestinal involvement of Behçet disease. Thalidomide was given at an initial dose of 2 mg/kg per day, and the dose was increased to 3 mg/kg per day if necessary (3 of 7 patients) or decreased to 1-0.5 mg/kg per day according to the responses to the drug.


RESULTS
All 7 patients showed dramatic improvement in clinical symptoms with thalidomide therapy, and they successfully discontinued steroid therapy. Patients receiving thalidomide were monitored for prolonged neurotoxicity, and the treatment and a few side effects were well tolerated by all patients.


CONCLUSIONS
Our results indicate that thalidomide can be an efficacious medication in appropriately selected patients with some inflammatory bowel diseases with many chances of success.
Yasui
Kozo
K
Department of Pediatrics, Nagano Red Cross Hospital, Nagano, Japan. k-yasui@nagano-med.jrc.or.jp
Uchida
Noriko
N
Akazawa
Yohei
Y
Nakamura
Shinichi
S
Minami
Isaki
I
Amano
Yoshiro
Y
Yamazaki
Takashi
T
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001528:Behcet Syndrome / Q000097:blood / Q000150:complications*; D002097:C-Reactive Protein; D002648:Child; D004305:Dose-Response Relationship, Drug; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D007166:Immunosuppressive Agents / Q000008:administration & dosage / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D015212:Inflammatory Bowel Diseases / Q000097:blood / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000209:etiology; D008297:Male; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D013792:Thalidomide / Q000008:administration & dosage / Q000627:therapeutic use*
D007166:Immunosuppressive Agents; D013792:Thalidomide; D002097:C-Reactive Protein