A short course of corticosteroids prior to surveillance colonoscopy to decrease mucosal inflammation in inflammatory bowel disease patients: results from a randomized controlled trial.
BACKGROUND
Inflammation is a known pitfall of surveillance colonoscopy for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) as it is difficult to differentiate between inflammation and true dysplasia. This randomized controlled trial assessed the effectiveness of a low dose of corticosteroids prior to surveillance colonoscopy to decrease mucosal inflammation.


METHODS
IBD-patients scheduled for surveillance colonoscopy between July 2008-January 2010 were eligible to participate. Patients were randomized to either two weeks daily 20mg prednisone and calcium plus vitamin D prior to surveillance colonoscopy or no treatment. All biopsies were reviewed by an expert gastrointestinal pathologist who was blinded for medication-use. Statistics were performed using chi-square tests, non-parametric tests and binary logistic regression.


RESULTS
Sixty patients (M/F 30/30, UC/CD 31/29) participated: 31 (52%) in the treatment arm and 29 (48%) in the control group. In the treatment arm, 247 biopsies were scored against 262 in the control group. In the treatment arm 27 out of 247 biopsies (10.9%) had a score >1 on the Geboes scale, against 50 out of 262 biopsies (19.1%) in the control group, p=0.013. In total, 58% of the treatment arm against 66% of the control group had endoscopic or histological mucosal inflammation (p=0.6). There was a trend for patients in the treatment arm to have less severe inflammation compared with the control group, however this was not significant (p=0.12).


CONCLUSIONS
In our cohort, a short course of corticosteroids decreases the overall histological disease activity in individual biopsies without major side-effects. Moreover, there is a trend for corticosteroids to decrease the maximum severity of both endoscopic and histological disease activity per patient.
Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Erasmus MC, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. j.baars@erasmusmc.nl
Judith E
JE
Baars
L
L
Vogelaar
Frank H J
FH
Wolfhagen
K
K
Biermann
Ernst J
EJ
Kuipers
C Janneke
CJ
van der Woude
D000328:Adult; D000893:Anti-Inflammatory Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D001706:Biopsy; D003093:Colitis, Ulcerative / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000473:pathology; D003113:Colonoscopy; D015179:Colorectal Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis; D003424:Crohn Disease / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000473:pathology; D004334:Drug Administration Schedule; D055088:Early Detection of Cancer; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007249:Inflammation / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000473:pathology; D015212:Inflammatory Bowel Diseases / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000473:pathology*; D007413:Intestinal Mucosa / Q000473:pathology*; D008297:Male; D055118:Medication Adherence; D008875:Middle Aged; D011241:Prednisone / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D016896:Treatment Outcome
D000893:Anti-Inflammatory Agents; D011241:Prednisone