Conditions: Ulcerative Colitis
Keywords: ulcerative colitis inflammatory bowel disease
Allocation: RANDOMIZED | Intervention model: PARALLEL
Enrollment: 119
Healthy volunteers: no

Brief summary:
The proposed study will test whether increasing Lialda dose can reduce fecal calprotectin (FCP) levels, a marker of intestinal inflammation that is highly predictive of the risk of relapse among patients with quiescent ulcerative colitis. Sixty patients with FCP levels \<50µg/g stool will be observed for 48 weeks. All patients will have FCP concentration measured using a commercially available assay at enrollment, 6 weeks and 12 weeks. All patients with persistently elevated FCP will receive one or both of the following interventions: change in the mesalamine formulation to Lialda and/or increase in the dose of Lialda. Reduction in FCP levels below 50µg/g stool 6 weeks after randomization will be the primary outcome. The proportion of patients achieving this outcome will be compared between groups using Fisher's exact test. All randomized patients as well as those who were excluded from the randomized trial because of a low FCP concentration at baseline will be followed to week 48 to determine the rate of clinical relapse.

Detailed description:
Among patients with quiescent ulcerative colitis (UC), lower fecal concentrations of calprotectin are associated with lower rates of relapse. We performed an open-label, randomized controlled trial to investigate whether increasing doses of mesalamine reduce concentrations of fecal calprotectin (FC) in patients with quiescent UC.

We screened 119 patients with UC in remission on the basis of Simple Clinical Colitis Activity Index scores, FC \>50 µg/g, and intake of no more than 3 g/day mesalamine. Participants taking mesalamine formulations other than multimatrix mesalamine were switched to multimatrix mesalamine (2.4 g/day) for 6 weeks; 52 participants were then randomly assigned (1:1) to a group that continued its current dose of mesalamine (controls, n = 26) or a group that increased its dose by 2.4 g/day for 6 weeks (n = 26). The primary outcome was continued remission with FC \<50 µg/g. Secondary outcomes were continued remission with FC \<100 µg/g or \<200 µg/g (among patients with pre-randomization values above these levels).

Arms:
arm 1: Increase dose of mesalamine by 2.4 gm per day arm 2: Maintain current mesalamine dose at 2.4 g/day

Interventions: intervention 1: mesalamine
Intervention descriptions: intervention 1: Increase dose by 2.4gm per day over baseline dose

Protocol document: