David
Co-Founder
- Location
- Naples, Florida
A member recently asked,
Tolulope O. Falaiye, MD is a pediatric gastroenterologist Hershey/Penn State IBD Center.
In regards to the question, Dr. Falaiye stated:
Tolulope O. Falaiye, M.D. of the Penn State Hershey Inflammatory Bowel Disease Center took time out of her busy schedule to answer this question. A little about Dr. Falaiye:Do any of the biologics have a lower risk of infection or are they all the same? Does decreasing duration between biologic dosing increase the chance of infection?
![](http://assets.pennstatehershey.org/psh-images/findaphysician/providers/tfalaiye.jpg)
Tolulope O. Falaiye, MD is a pediatric gastroenterologist Hershey/Penn State IBD Center.
In regards to the question, Dr. Falaiye stated:
Thank you to Dr. Falaiye for her time and expertise!In May 2013, the American Journal of Gastroenterology published a study summarizing the findings of infections in all the studies of biologics. This summary concluded that less than 1% of patients on biologics develop a severe infection. But, in the research studies, patients on biologics were twice as likely as patients not on biologics to get a severe infection. In general, we believe the benefit of treating the inflammatory bowel disease outweighs the risks of the medicine. We do monitor for these infections and advise patients to stay away from people with active infections specifically of chicken pox, shingles and tuberculosis. At the current time, the medical community thinks the risk is the same for all the biologics. This is also what the pharmaceutical companies have stated.
When you say decreasing the duration between biologic dosing, I assume you mean spreading out the doses to get less medicine overall. We do not recommend this technique because in research studies, we found that patients who get the medicine too far spread out can become resistant to the medicine. If a patient becomes resistant to the medicine, they may never respond to the medicine again. So we usually start out with the medicine as far spaced as possible and give it more frequently only if a patient needs it more often to control their disease.