Miguel Regueiro, MD, on the Safety of JAK Inhibitors in IBD

Dr Regueiro reports from the ACG Scientific Meeting that a study of Janus kinase (JAK) inhibitors for treatment of ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease provided reassurance concerning the safety of these small molecules.

Miguel Regueiro, MD, is professor of medicine and chair of the Digestive Disease Institute at Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio. 

I'm Dr. Miguel Reguerio. I'm the chief of the Digestive Disease Institute at Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio, coming to you from ACG 2024. There was a great presentation in the plenary session that showed that JAK inhibitors, upadacitinib and tofacitinib, did not have an increased rate of VTE, venous thromboembolism, or MACE, major adverse cardiovascular events, in our patients with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis. This is actually a confirmatory study to something that we just published last week in the IBD Journal where our group, our Cleveland Clinic group, found that upadacitinib, tofacitinib, have not been linked to VTE or MACE in Crohn's or ulcerative colitis patients. So some of the initial concerns that came out of the ORAL surveillance study in rheumatoid arthritis, we are not seeing the same thing in our ulcerative colitis or Crohn's patients with JAK inhibitors.

It does not mean that we should avoid this as far as discussion with the patients. However, I think that we are now feeling more comfortable using these therapies in our Crohn's and ulcerative colitis patients in general. So thank you very much.