Infliximab for postsurgical endoscopic recurrence of Crohn's disease: no trumpets yet

We read with interest the article by Yamamoto et al1 on the impact of infliximab after early endoscopic postsurgical recurrence of Crohn’s disease (CD) published in the current issue of IBD. Although this study adds timely information to an exciting field, we believe that, for the time being, it should be interpreted with caution. Current knowledge on prevention of postsurgical recurrence of CD by infliximab stems from reports from our group as well as from a small randomized controlled trial (RCT) by Regueiro et al.2,3 Although these data would benefit from confirmation by a large trial, they uniformly show that therapy with this biologic—initiated immediately after surgery—prevents endoscopic and clinical recurrence of disease in the large majority of patients.