Abstract
Through a variety of mechanisms including folate-independent pathways, once weekly low-dose methotrexate, either oral or parenteral, has been demonstrated to exert immune-modifying effects. The currently published data shows the efficacy of methotrexate in Crohn’s disease, while well-designed clinical trial data in ulcerative colitis is just emerging. While there is robust prospective data in adult Crohn’s disease, the current data in pediatric patients is largely retrospective but consistently encouraging. Large pediatric registry data clearly demonstrates that the rate of use of methotrexate as the first line immune modulator in pediatric Crohn’s disease is on the rise as is its use in combination with anti-tumor necrosis factor (TNF) agents.
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Rosh, J.R. (2017). Methotrexate. In: Mamula, P., Grossman, A., Baldassano, R., Kelsen, J., Markowitz, J. (eds) Pediatric Inflammatory Bowel Disease. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49215-5_31
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49215-5_31
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