Background: Hepatotoxicity results in the withdrawal of thiopurines drugs, azathioprine (AZA) and mercaptopurine (MP), in up to 10% of patients with inflammatory bowel disease. Our group previously demonstrated that allopurinol with AZA/ciclosporin/steroid 'triple therapy' improved renal graft survival.
Aim: To confirm the hypothesis that allopurinol may alleviate thiopurine hepatotoxicity by similar mechanisms as proposed in our renal study.
A previous study showed that supine gastroesophageal reflux occurs mainly in the early nighttime period and is greater if the patient retires within 2 hr of a meal. We analyzed 306 consecutive esophageal pH studies between January and July 2003. Ninety-two patients had abnormal supine reflux.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOver the past 10 years major progress has been made in understanding the genetic contribution to inflammatory bowel disease. NOD2 was recently identified as a major susceptibility gene for Crohn's disease. This and a number of other strong genetic leads are discussed.
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