Early Biological Therapy in Operated Crohn’s Disease Patients Is Associated With a Lower Rate of Endoscopic Recurrence and Improved Long-term Outcomes: A Single-center Experience

BACKGROUND: Two-thirds of Crohn’s disease (CD) patients require surgery during their disease course. However, surgery is not curative, and endoscopic recurrence is observed in up to 90% of cases. Our aim was to investigate the impact of postoperative biological therapy on the incidence of endoscopic recurrence and long-term outcomes in CD patients. METHODS: This retrospective cohort study was conducted at the Humanitas Research Hospital–IRCCS (Milan, Italy) between 2014 and 2021. All consecutive CD patients who underwent surgery and colonoscopy at 6-12 months postoperatively were eligible for inclusion. RESULTS: A total of 141 patients were included (42.6% female, mean age 44 years). Median follow-up was 28 months. About one-third of patients were treated with biologics at baseline colonoscopy. A higher rate of endoscopic recurrence was detected in patients without biologic therapy at the time of colonoscopy compared with those treated (80.8% vs 45.2%, P < .0001). Hospitalization and surgery occurred more in untreated patients than in subjects undergoing biological therapy (12.1% vs 0.0%, P = .01). The Kaplan-Meier curves showed that the no treatment group at baseline had a >23.3% 5-year rate of hospitalization and surgery (log-rank P = .0221) and a >49.7% 5-year rate of medical therapy escalation (log-rank P = .0013) compared with the treatment arm. In the logistic regression model, absence of biologic therapy was independently associated with the risk of endoscopic disease recurrence (odds ratio, 0.22; 95% CI, 0.1-0.51; P = .0004). CONCLUSION: Operated CD patients treated early with biologics experience decreased rates of endoscopic recurrence and improved long-term outcomes.