Treatment of Crohn's disease by anti-cytokine monoclonal antibodies

Pro-inflammatory cytokines such as TNF-alpha and IL-6 play a role in the pathogenesis of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Recent advances in the treatment with IBD patients, in particular Crohn's disease, are the use of anti-cytokine monoclonal antibodies against TNF-alpha. Three types of anti-human TNF-alpha antibodies have been developed. Infliximab is a chimeric antibody containing Fab portion of anti-human TNF-alpha mouse IgG and Fc portion of human IgG. CDP571 is a humanized (-95% human residues) monoclonal antibody, and is potentially less immunogenic than chimeric antibody. In this paper, we summarize the recent reports describing the clinical efficacy of these antibodies in the treatment of Crohn's disease.