MONDAY, Oct. 3, 2016 (HealthDay News) -- For Chinese patients with Crohn's disease (CD), 2 mg/kg/day azathioprine (AZA) seems more effective than 1 mg/kg/day, according to a study published online Sept. 21 in the Journal of Digestive Diseases.
Yu Zhang, from Zhejiang University School of Medicine in Hangzhou, China, and colleagues enrolled 50 patients with active CD. Patients were randomly allocated to groups that received the same treatments except for the dose of AZA (group A, 1 mg/kg/day and group B, 2 mg/kg/day). The complete remission rate and response rate were assessed at weeks 12, 24, and 48.
The researchers found that the complete remission rate and response rate were significantly higher in group B than in group A at 48 weeks (P < 0.05). Participants in group A experienced one pancreatitis, one arthritis, and two myelosuppression adverse events; one arthritis and two myelosuppression events occurred in group B. Group A had a higher recurrence rate than group B (P = 0.042).
"2 mg/kg/d of AZA is more appropriate than 1mg/kg/d for Chinese CD patients with a high efficacy rate, a low recurrence rate and no ascent in adverse events," the authors write.
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