Marlana Radcliffe, MD: Treating Ulcerative Colitis Patients With Upadacitinib After Tofacitinib

Deciding which of the several biologic treatment options for patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) can be challenging.

This becomes even more difficult when deciding on a second or third treatment after the patient does not respond to the first treatment choice.

And every year there are more and more treatment options for IBD, including upadacitinib, which was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of patients with ulcerative colitis in March 2022.

In data presented during the Crohn’s and Colitis Congress 2023 conference in Denver, a team of investigators tested the efficacy of upadacitinib in patients with ulcerative colitis who were previously treated with tofacitinib.

The results show patients treated with upadacitinib who were previously treated with tofacitinib ended up in clinical remission. The treatment was also safe.

In an interview with HCPLive®, Marlana Radcliffe, MD, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, University of North Carolina School of Medicine, explained the promise from the results of the small case-series study.

“This is a pretty new drug (upadacitinib) there’s not a lot of new data out there,” Radcliffe said. “Based on our experience, upadacitinib does seem to be effective in patients with ulcerative colitis who were previously treated with tofacitinib.”