Elisabetta Colombo

TL;DR: Two distinct genome-wide association studies of ulcerative colitis are presented and their joint analysis with a previously published scan shows that roughly half of the known Crohn's disease associations are shared with ulceratives colitis, thereby providing insight into disease pathogenesis.

TL;DR: No single clinical or laboratory parameter among those analyzed (age, sex, disease characteristics, history of smoking, medication history, baseline values of clinical activity index/Crohn's disease activity index, hemoglobin, white blood cells count, and erythrocyte sedimentation rate) was independently associated with clinical outcome.

TL;DR: This review elaborate on the role of steroids in the treatment of ulcerative colitis, focusing on the aspects related to the mechanisms of action and resistance to the steroids, and their secondary effects, and analyses the alternatives to traditional systemic steroids such as the new steroids with low bioavailability and the steroids encapsulated into erythrocytes.

TL;DR: Infliximab is effective in steroid dependent/resistant moderate severe Crohn's disease and in fistulating disease, and previous surgery and other fistulas predicted a worse response in luminal and fistulate disease respectively.