Exabis Library

The educational objectives of the presentation are:
1. To understand that the choice of long-term treatment of IBD must take into account the benefit-risk balance of old and new IBD drugs
2. To review the most important aspects of IBD drug-induced cancers and serious infections
3. To understand that in most cases benefits outweigh risks, and that patients should not be undertreated
4. To understand, based on the example of tofacitinib, that it is important keep prudent with recently approved IBD drugs until powered data is available

After introducing the concept of benefit-risk balance, the presentation will review the three major aspects of IBD drug potential complications: drug-class specific complications, malignancies, and serious infections, including opportunistic infections.  A special focus will be made on thiopurine-induced lymphomas, thiopurine and anti-TNF-induced serious bacterial and viral infections, and how to manage these risks. We will then discuss the difficult choice of immunosuppressants in frail and older patients, based on drug-class specific safety data. Finally, using the example of tofacitinib, we will illustrate the importance of prescribing with caution recently approved drugs, until we have extensive safety data.

1. To describe the histopathology of ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease
2. Histological activity in ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease
3. To discuss the guidelines on sampling of biopsies in IBD