Perianal Fistula clinical trials

Tight Control Management in Perianal Crohn's Disease

Perianal Crohn's disease (pCD) affects around one-third of patients with Crohn's disease (CD) during their disease course. It represents a distinct disease phenotype and causes significant morbidity, often requiring multiple surgical interventions. However, treatment of pCD is still challenging and unsatisfactory. Only approximately one-third of pCD patients responded to biologic treatment. Overall, medical therapy with anti-TNF could only achieve prolonged remission in 30-40% of pCD cases. At the same time, surgical treatment could only lead to a favourable outcome in around 50% of patients with a higher recurrence rate in patients with complex than in simple fistulae. Recently, combination of optimal medical therapy with surgical therapy (drainage of sepsis and insertion of seton), with radiological guidance, has been suggested as the standard management so as to improve the outcomes of complex pCD. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is considered to be the gold standard imaging technique for perianal CD. It can visualise the anal sphincter and the pelvic floor muscles, as well as the fistula tracts and abscesses. Previous studies using MRI to monitor treatment response to anti-TNF revealed that radiological healing lagged behind clinical remission by a median of 12 months and that long-term maintenance therapy is probably required to prevent recurrence despite a clinically healed external opening. Therefore, we hypothesize that serial monitoring with MRI is important. Recently, there has been some advance in the surgical treatment of perianal Crohn's disease. FiLaCTM uses a radial-emitting disposable laser fibre for endofistular therapy. Recent systemic review and meta-analysis showed that the primary success rate was 73.3% (11/15) in patients with perianal Crohn's fistula. There has been breakthrough in the management of luminal Crohn's disease. The CALM study has showed that timely escalation of anti-TNF on the basis of clinical symptoms combined with biomarkers in patients with luminal Crohn's disease resulted in better clinical and endoscopic outcomes than symptom-driven decision alone. It is unsure whether this approach is also applicable to patients with perianal Crohn's disease.