Safety of anti-TNF therapy in inflammatory bowel disease during pregnancy

To Stop or Not to Stop? Predicting Relapse After Anti-TNF Cessation in Patients With Crohn’s Disease

“…This degree of risk is substantively higher than the relatively rare events of malignancy or serious infection associated with TNF antagonist therapy. 14 The potential consequences of disease progression in a patient who loses remission must be considered, including the possibility of a severe flare that is associated with symptoms, lost work productivity, potential need for hospitalization or corticosteroids, and/or surgery. Furthermore, a meta-analysis of retreatment with the same TNF antagonist in patients with inflammatory bowel disease demonstrated that up to 20% of patients will not recapture remission, and early lessons learned about the effect of episodic infliximab exposure on immunogenicity in CD patients should not be easily forgotten.…”