Korean J Gastroenterol.  2001 Jul;38(1):29-36.

Predicting Therapeutic Outcome in Severe Ulcerative Colitis by Measuring Cyclooxygenase-2 Expression

• Park DI
• Kim YH
• Sung IK
• Lee YW
• Lee JH
• Kim JE
• Hyun JG
• Jang JK
• Son HJ
• Rhee PL
• Kim JJ
• Paik SW
• Rhee JC
• Choi KW
• Oh YL

Abstract

BACKGROUND/AIMS: Up to 29% of patients with severe ulcerative colitis (UC) fail to respond to steroids acutely and thus, require surgery. The aims of this study were to elucidate the predicting factors suggesting medical treatment failure in patients with severe UC and to evaluate whether cyclooxygenase (COX)-2 expression can predict the prognosis of these patients.
METHODS
Thirty-six patients with severe UC were enrolled in this study. After seven-day-treatment with high-dose intravenous steroids, they were classified into three groups according to the level of respondence: complete responders (CR), incomplete responders (IR), and treatment failures (TF). Then, clinical, laboratory, histological (including COX-2 expression), and endoscopic indices of those 3 groups were compared.
RESULTS
Distal colitis tended to be more frequent in the CR. However, the other clinical, laboratory, histological and endoscopic indices of the three groups were similar. The expression rates of COX-2 were similar in the three groups and showed a significant correlation with the histological severity.
CONCLUSIONS
The extent of disease can be a good predictor of outcome of steroid therapy for severe UC but COX-2 expression can not predict the outcome of the therapy.

Keyword

Percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy; complication; wound infection

MeSH Terms

Colitis
Colitis, Ulcerative*
Cyclooxygenase 2*
Humans
Prognosis
Prostaglandin-Endoperoxide Synthases
Steroids
Treatment Failure
Ulcer*
Wound Infection
Cyclooxygenase 2
Prostaglandin-Endoperoxide Synthases
Steroids