P696 The usefulness to treatment enhancement for the patients of ulcerative colitis with clinical remission diagnosed as Mayo endoscopic subscore 1

M. Kubota Kajiwara, K. Uchiyama, Y. Azuma, R. Yasuda, S. Takayama, T. Takagi, Y. Naitoh

Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine, Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Kyoto, Japan

Background

In many clinical trials of ulcerative colitis (UC), Mayo endoscopic subscore (MES) has been used to diagnose mucosal healing to evaluate the effectiveness of various treatment. Although both MES 0 and MES 1 were defined as the endoscopic mucosal healing, several studies reported that the risk of clinical relapse was significantly higher in the patients diagnosed as MES 1 compared with MES 0. However, it has not been established the beneficial effect to escalate the treatment for the patients diagnosed as MES 1 to avoid clinical relapse. In the present study, we retrospectively investigated the effectiveness about the escalation of treatment for UC patients with clinical remission diagnosed as MES 1.

Methods

A total of 68 patients with UC diagnosed as clinical remission (4 and under of Lichtiger CAI score) between April 2014 to October 2019 were enrolled in this study. All patients were endoscopically diagnosed as MES 1 and observation period was 12 months from the time of endoscopy. Relapse of UC was defined as the need for more aggressive treatment for UC due to aggravation of clinical symptoms or endoscopic findings. The relapse ratio was compared between the patients who continued the same treatment and the patients who had enhanced treatment. Enhanced treatment was defined as additional oral medicine or local preparations including enemas, suppositories, and foams within 3 months from endoscopic examination.

Results

In 68 patients, 12 patients were received enhanced treatment and 56 patients were continued the same treatments. There were no significant differences in clinical background between the two groups such as mean age (enhanced treatment group vs. same treatment group: 47.9 years vs. 42.9 years), disease type, disease duration (110.3 months vs. 94.8 months), and disease activity (Lichtiger CAI score: 2.5 vs. 2.8). The group of the enhanced treatment included 8 patients with oral 5-aminosalicylates escalation and 4 patients with additional local preparations. The relapse ratio was higher in patients with same treatment group (0%) compared with enhanced treatment group (14.3%).

Conclusion

Our results indicate that the enhancement of the treatment for UC patients with clinical remission diagnosed as MES 1 is effective to avoid relapse.