Mucosal healing is an important therapeutic endpoint in the management of Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC). Limited data exist regarding the comparative efficacy of various therapies in achieving this outcome.
To perform a systematic review and meta-analysis of biologics for induction and maintenance of mucosal healing in Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis.
We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials (RCT) examining mucosal healing as an endpoint of immunosuppressives, anti-tumour necrosis factor α (anti-TNF) or anti-integrin monoclonal antibody therapy for moderate-to-severe CD or UC. Pooled effect sizes for induction and maintenance of mucosal healing were calculated and pairwise treatment comparisons evaluated using a Bayesian network meta-analysis.
A total of 12 RCTs were included in the meta-analysis (CD - 2 induction, 4 maintenance; UC - 8 induction, 5 maintenance). Duration of follow-up was 6-12 weeks for induction and 32-54 weeks for maintenance trials. In CD, anti-TNFs were more effective than placebo for maintaining mucosal healing [28% vs. 1%, Odds ratio (OR) 19.71, 95% confidence interval (CI) 3.51-110.84]. In UC, anti-TNFs and anti-integrins were more effective than placebo for inducing (45% vs. 30%) and maintaining mucosal healing (33% vs. 18%). In network analysis, adalimumab therapy was inferior to infliximab [OR 0.45, 95% credible interval (CrI) 0.25-0.82] and combination infliximab-azathioprine (OR 0.32, 95% CrI 0.12-0.84) for inducing mucosal healing in UC. There was no statistically significant pairwise difference between vedolizumab and anti-TNF agents in UC.
Anti-TNF and anti-integrin biological agents are effective in inducing mucosal healing in UC, with adalimumab being inferior to infliximab or combination therapy. Infliximab and adalimumab were similar in CD.