Chinese research into severe ulcerative colitis has increased in quantity and complexity

Luo, Cheng-Xin; Wen, Zhong-Hui; Zhen, Yu; Wang, Zhu-Jun; Mu, Jing-Xi; Zhu, Min; Ouyang, Qin; Zhang, Hu

These data also indicate that management is the prime focus of SUC research in China, since almost all analytical studies and clinical trials were found to focus on management regimes, including pharmacotherapy, nutrition support and surgery. While intravenous corticosteroid treatment remains the first-line therapy for SUC, the low rate of efficacy, 67.3% reported in our pooled analysis is consistent with the high refractory rate of 31%-35% reported by Seah et al [2] . Prompt and objective assessment of the failure of steroid therapy plays an important role in the management of SUC [29] . However, only 3 of the 201 articles reported predictive factors for steroids failure, consequently it is hard to obtain a unified index with high sensitivity and specificity. Further studies are required to establish homogenous predictors and unified methods for predicting steroid treatment failure and the subsequent requirement for salvage therapy or surgery.