Implications for therapy of ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease
| Question | Answer |
| Ulcerative colitis | |
| Encourage patient to commence smoking to improve symptoms and clinical course? | No, but patients should be told the facts |
| Consider nicotine patches in active disease? | Ye s, worth considering in patients with mild to moderate disease not responding to conventional treatment (particularly if urgency is a major problem) |
| Consider nicotine enema in active disease? | Ye s, in patients with mild to moderate disease with side effects on transdermal nicotine |
| Nicotine patches for maintenance of remission | Not on available data but could be revised with future trials |
| Crohn's disease | |
| Encourage patient to stop smoking to improve outcome and help maintain remission? | Ye s, one of the most useful steps that can be taken by the patient to help the natural history of their disease |