Background: Up to the present date, the treatment of recurrent chronic fistulas occurring with Crohn's disease represents a challenging task for both internists and surgeons alike.
Methods: Conservative methods of treatment using steroids, dietotherapy, antibiotics or immunosuppressive agents are not particularly effective in treating fistulas. Treatment with anti-tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNFalpha) antibodies results in more remissions of fistulas. However, its use requires appropriate medical experience and causes substantial costs. Surgical procedures such as fistula sanitation or protective ileostomy are often obfuscated by the recurrence of the condition. The efficiency of anti-TNFalpha antibodies for the treatment of active Crohn's disease has been evidenced through several multicenter, double-blind, placebo-controlled studies.
Results: Here we report the successful anti-TNFalpha treatment of a patient suffering from chronic, fistulizing, therapy-resistant Crohn's disease and a concomitant chronic autoimmune thrombocytopenia. The chimeric anti-TNFalpha antibody infliximab markedly reduced the disease activity of Crohn's disease, and, in addition, substantially increased the platelet counts. After infliximab application, no other treatment of autoimmune thrombocytopenia was required. After infliximab therapy, autoantibodies to dsDNS could be observed. However, there were no signs of a lupus-like disease.
Conclusion: This report indicates a favorable therapeutic response of autoimmune thrombocytopenia associated to Crohn's disease.