Surgery

Inflammatory bowel disease

Environmental health

Physics

Optics

Diverticulosis

Population

Internal medicine

Diverticulitis

Diverticular disease

Mesalazine

Medicine

Gastroenterology

Disease

Incidence (geometry)

Internal and Emergency Medicine

The aim of this work was to compare the recurrence of diverticulitis during a 5-year follow-up in a population of patients affected by symptomatic uncomplicated diverticular disease (SUDD), taking either 800 mg of mesalamine b.i.d for 10 days every month or no 5-ASA. Sixty-seven consecutive patients affected by SUDD followed-up every 6 months for 5 years. All patients in this group (M-group) were requested to consume mesalamine 800 mg b.i.d for 10 days every month. A control group (C-group) of 82 subjects with SUDD allocated in an institution for the elderly and taking no 5-ASA medications was also followed-up for the same period. As a result in the M-group 14.9% of patients did not complete the follow-up, and diverticulitis developed in two patients (4%; 95% CI 1.1–13.5). In the C-group 6.1% patients did not complete the follow-up, and diverticulitis developed in 8 patients (10.4%; 95% CI 5.4–19.2). The difference between the two groups was not significant (difference = −6.4%; 95% CI −15.6 to 4.3; log rank test: p = 0.1256). Cyclic treatment with mesalazine seems to be clinical, although not statistically effective in reducing the incidence of diverticulitis. In future well-designed RCTs are necessary to demonstrate the therapeutic gain of the use of mesalazine, if any, in the management of patients with SUDD.

Long-term treatment with mesalazine in patients with symptomatic uncomplicated diverticular disease