Highs and Lows of Proactive Therapeutic Drug Monitoring in Crohn’s Patients

Excerpt

Therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) has emerged in the field of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) as an important clinical tool aimed at optimizing the patient’s response to biologic therapy. TDM involves measuring serum concentrations of a therapeutic drug or antidrug antibodies with the aim of inducing (reactive) or sustaining (proactive) disease remission through confirming that drug dosing is adequate. Its rising importance has been supported by studies correlating reactive TDM measurements and favorable patient outcomes, including decreased hospitalizations, surgery, colectomy, and loss of response [1]. While less robust, studies have also shown that proactive TDM similarly provides improved clinical outcomes, reducing loss of response, and providing a cost-effective method for dosing biologics [2]. …