Steroid therapy for inflammatory bowel disease.

In inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) as represented by ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn's disease (CD), UC is characterized by the diffuse inflammation from rectum and the resulting frequent diarrhea and bloody stool, and CD is characterized by scattered inflammation that may affect any part of the gastrointestinal tract from mouth to anus. Both diseases include diarrhea and abdominal cramping or pain, therefore IBD patients lose the quality of life coclusively. In general, salazosulfapyridine and 5-acetylsalicylic acid (5-ASA) are baseline drugs for IBD, but sometimes these drugs are insufficient to suppress their inflammation. Steroid therapy is chosen as an induction treatment at that situation but not as a maintenance therapy. In this session, I would like to show how to use steroid and what are side effects of steroid for the treatment of IBD.