Time to clinical response and remission for therapeutics in inflammatory bowel diseases: What should the clinician expect, what should patients be told?

Table 2 Previously documented and potential/ novel methods of improving time to response to therapy in Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis

	Clinical scenario	Method	Improves time to response	Improves response rate	Improves tolerability	Published data?	Comments	Ref.
Corticosteroids	CD and UC	Intravenous administration		-	-	Yes		[27,32,150]
Anti-tumour necrosis factor-α	Initial or for flare to recapture response (CD and UC)	Addition of azathioprine			-	Yes		[50]
Thiopurine	CD and UC	Addition of allopurinol	-	-		Yes		[105,108]
		Split dosing of thiopurine	-	-		Yes		[151]
Methotrexate	CD	High dose parenteral with corticosteroids if relapse on lower dose	-		-	Yes	Can recapture response	[152]
Tacrolimus	UC	Target levels of 10-15 ng/mL	-		-	Yes		[123]
Aminosalicylates	UC	Maximize dose			-	Yes		[21]
	Distal UC	Choice of formulation (balsalazide)		-	-	Yes		[17,20]

CD: Crohn’s disease; UC: Ulcerative colitis.