Prevention of postoperative recurrence with azathioprine or infliximab in patients with Crohn's disease: an open-label pilot study

Patients with Crohn's disease (CD) often require surgery over their clinical course. However, endoscopic and clinical recurrence of disease appear respectively in up to 80% and 30% of patients after one year. Thus, a prophylactic treatment is needed to reduce the possibility of recurrence. Both azathioprine and infliximab have been demonstrated to be effective, but head to head studies have not been performed so far. Aim of this open-label prospective study was to analyse endoscopic, histological and clinical recurrence after one year of treatment with azathioprine or infliximab as postoperative therapies in CD patients with "high risk" of recurrence.