Infliximab Clearance Is Associated with Colectomy in Acute Severe Ulcerative Colitis

Infliximab is effective rescue therapy for acute severe ulcerative colitis (ASUC), but an optimum dosing strategy remains unclear. In an attempt to better characterize pharmacokinetics of inpatient use and correlate them with clinical outcome, investigators retrospectively studied calculated baseline infliximab clearance in 39 patients hospitalized with ASUC. Their primary aim was to compare clearance rates between patients requiring colectomy at 6 months and those without colectomy.

The median calculated baseline infliximab clearance was significantly higher in patients requiring colectomy at 6 months (0.733 L/day vs. 0.569 L/day). In multivariable logistic regression, only baseline clearance was associated with 6-month colectomy. A thresho…