Long-term durability of Crohn's disease treatment with infliximab.

Background: There is a paucity of data providing insight into the durability of Crohn's disease treatment with infliximab for periods longer than 12 months. Our aim was to assess the long-term durability of infliximab therapy.

Materials And Methods: A total of 198 Crohn's patients under a maintenance regimen with infliximab, with at least a 30-month follow-up, were evaluated retrospectively. Long-term response maintenance was estimated using Kaplan-Meier analysis. The effect of specific variables was calculated using logistic regression and proportional hazard regression analyses.

Results: Maintenance of response rates at 72 months was estimated to be 66.4% for initial responders and 58.2% for all patients treated. Concurrent immunomodulators enhanced response maintenance in all patients treated, particularly if started >3 months before the initiation of infliximab therapy. Smoking significantly decreased the maintenance of response in initial responders.

Conclusions: Infliximab treatment of Crohn's disease is reasonably durable beyond 12 months. Concurrent immunosuppressive therapy may increase - and smoking may decrease - long-term response maintenance.