Vedolizumab therapy in pediatric inflammatory bowel disease – case report

TLDR: Two cases are presented in which vedolizumab was used in CU as well as CD therapy in pediatric patients, which shows improvement in the quality of life of patients with IBD.

Abstract: Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a term, which includes ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn’s disease (CD) – chronic inflammatory bowel diseases with unknown etiology. Disease is commonly thought to be caused by combination of immunological, genetic and environmental factors. Most often diagnosis of IBD is established among young, 15-29 years old people, but the age of diagnosis is systematically reduced. Treatment plan depends on phase of disease, symptoms intensity and patient age. The main type of treatment are enteral nutrition, pharmacological therapy and finally surgical intervention in case of insufficient response. Until now, in pediatric patients U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved biologic agents, infliximab and adalimumab as CD treatment and infliximab only as UC treatment. Currently new biological agents are being studied as part of effective and safe IBD therapy in children. Particular attention is now given to vedolizumab which is already used and approved as part of IBD treatment algorithm in adults. Purpose of this article is to present two cases in which vedolizumab was used in CU as well as CD therapy in pediatric patients.