Ulcerative colitis: history of a successful treatment.

In this report we describe a case of a 19-year-old woman with a severe to fulminant steroid-resistant ulcerative colitis that was successfully treated with infliximab. Severe to fulminant ulcerative colitis is a potentially life-threatening condition and although the mortality rate has dropped dramatically over the past 40 years, this has not been the case with colectomy which has remained unchanged. Recently, infliximab has been shown to be effective as rescue therapy for steroid-refractory cases.