What does pentasa do?
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DustyKat
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Pentasa belongs to a group of drugs called 5-ASA’s and they are anti-inflammatories.
The step up approach to dealing with IBD works something like this, you treat the disease by hitting it hard with steroids then move onto drugs that will maintain a state of remission. So you start with:
5-ASA’s then move to
Immunosuppressives (Imuran, 6MP, Methotrexate), then move to
Biologics (Remicade, Humira, etc)
The 5ASA’s have a number of preparations with the aim being to target disease at varying locations in the bowel. They are marketed under a variety of names and come in both oral and enema form. The oral presentations available are:
Pentasa - is designed to be released throughout the small and large bowel.
Salofalk - is designed to be released in the terminal ileum and ascending colon.
Asacol - is designed to be released in the large bowel only.
They are meant to work topically so it is important the correct preparation is prescribed.
Studies tend to point to the fact that 5-ASA’s are far more effective for UC than for Crohn’s, which would make sense given that UC affects the top layer of the bowel whereas Crohn’s has the potential to penetrate all layers of the bowel and the 5-ASA’s are topical. That said some with Crohn’s do respond well to 5ASA’s as a stand alone treatment (monotherapy) but they are few and far between, it is far more common to see the 5-ASA’s used in Crohn’s as a combined therapy with one of the immunosuppressants.
Again, being topical and an anti-inflammatory you would expect a faster response time than that of Imuran/6MP, IIRC most experiences I have seen on the forum say response time was about 2-4 weeks.
The step up approach to dealing with IBD works something like this, you treat the disease by hitting it hard with steroids then move onto drugs that will maintain a state of remission. So you start with:
5-ASA’s then move to
Immunosuppressives (Imuran, 6MP, Methotrexate), then move to
Biologics (Remicade, Humira, etc)
The 5ASA’s have a number of preparations with the aim being to target disease at varying locations in the bowel. They are marketed under a variety of names and come in both oral and enema form. The oral presentations available are:
Pentasa - is designed to be released throughout the small and large bowel.
Salofalk - is designed to be released in the terminal ileum and ascending colon.
Asacol - is designed to be released in the large bowel only.
They are meant to work topically so it is important the correct preparation is prescribed.
Studies tend to point to the fact that 5-ASA’s are far more effective for UC than for Crohn’s, which would make sense given that UC affects the top layer of the bowel whereas Crohn’s has the potential to penetrate all layers of the bowel and the 5-ASA’s are topical. That said some with Crohn’s do respond well to 5ASA’s as a stand alone treatment (monotherapy) but they are few and far between, it is far more common to see the 5-ASA’s used in Crohn’s as a combined therapy with one of the immunosuppressants.
Again, being topical and an anti-inflammatory you would expect a faster response time than that of Imuran/6MP, IIRC most experiences I have seen on the forum say response time was about 2-4 weeks.
