Mesalamine and Immunosuppressant Treatment in Crohn’s Disease

Abstract

The effects of medicines are not always well understood, and some may worsen the diseases that they are intended to treat. The purpose of this study was to determine if the use of mesalamine (MM) and/or immunosuppressives (IS) causes an amplification or mitigation of the dysbiosis that the gut microbiome experiences during Crohn’s Disease (CD). CD is an inflammatory bowel disease that results in chronic inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract. It was hypothesized that MM and IS mitigate the dysbiosis caused by CD individually, as well as when used together. The research subset bacterial DNA samples from the Gevers et al. study into five distinct groups based on CD and medication status (i.e. presence/absence of MM and/or IS) (Gevers et al. 2014). These were analyzed to determine if there were statistically significant differences of the alpha, beta, and taxonomic diversities between CD patients taking different medications. The study concluded that MM is likely able to mitigate CD dysbiosis and be kept as a treatment, while IS likely do not mitigate dysbiosis and may even amplify it. These findings are significant for medical practitioners to consider as a factor for what treatments should be used against CD.