The Effect of Mesalamine and Nicotine in the Treatment of Inflammatory Bowel Disease

OBJECTIVE:To characterize the usefulness of mesalamine and nicotine in the treatment of active ulcerative colitis and inactive Crohn's disease.DATA SOURCES:Citations were selected from the MEDLINE database. Only those involving human subjects, inflammatory bowel disease, and available in English were selected.STUDY SELECTION:Selection criteria consisted of clinical trials and review articles assessing the effects of mesalamine and nicotine in active ulcerative colitis or inactive Crohn's disease and the utility of reducing steroid dependence or relapse rate. Less than 20% of the articles identified met the selection criteria.DATA SYNTHESIS:In patients with inactive Crohn's disease, mesalamine 2 g/d significantly reduced the risk of relapse in high-relapse-risk patients compared with placebo, reducing the relapse rate from 71% to 55%, but was ineffective in preventing recurrence of inactive Crohn's disease following surgical resection.Mesalamine 4 g/d was effective in decreasing weaning failure due to ster...