Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2018. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Cases. Oct 26, 2018; 6(12): 501-513
Published online Oct 26, 2018. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v6.i12.501
Treat-to-target in Crohn’s disease: Will transmural healing become a therapeutic endpoint?
Elena Daniela Serban
Elena Daniela Serban, 2nd Department of Pediatrics, “Iuliu Hatieganu” University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Emergency Hospital for Children, Cluj-Napoca 400177, Romania
Author contributions: Serban ED conceived of and designed the study performed the data collection, extraction, analysis, and interpretation, prepared the manuscript performed the editing and critical revision of the manuscript through to its final version for submission.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The author has no potential conflicts of interest relevant to this publication.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Elena Daniela Serban, MD, PhD, Associate Professor, Pediatric Gastroenterologist, 2nd Department of Pediatrics, “Iuliu Hatieganu” University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Emergency Hospital for Children, 5 Crisan Street, Cluj-Napoca 400177, Romania. daniela.serban@umfcluj.ro
Telephone: +40-264-532216 Fax: +40-264-590478
Received: June 4, 2018
Peer-review started: June 25, 2018
First decision: August 3, 2018
Revised: August 17, 2018
Accepted: October 8, 2018
Article in press: October 8, 2018
Published online: October 26, 2018
Core Tip

Core tip: Crohn’s disease (CD) represents a chronic transmural inflammatory condition of the gastrointestinal tract, potentially leading to structural damage and disability. Deep remission (clinical and endoscopic remission), the current therapeutic goal, significantly improves patients’ long-term outcomes. Transmural healing (TH) could be a more effective target. Therefore, this narrative review (the first of its kind, to the best of the author’s knowledge) aims to provide the currently available scientific evidence on the predictive role of TH for long-term outcomes (clinical remission, therapeutic changes, CD-related hospitalizations and surgeries) and to establish whether TH should become a therapeutic endpoint in the treat-to-target strategy.