Influence of steroid treatment's duration in patients with active Crohn's disease

Steroids are very useful drugs in the treatment of active Crohn's disease (CD), but clinical relapses after steroid withdrawal may be very high. We investigated the efficacy of two steroid regimens of different duration in inducing remission and in maintaining it after drug suspension. Remission rates seem not to be influenced by the duration of the treatment, but patients recently treated with steroids showed a higher relapse rate if they received the short-duration treatment.