Antibiotics for the Treatment of Ulcerative Colitis

Summary

Ulcerative colitis (UC) is an acute and chronic inflammatory bowel disease, whose cause is unknown. However, it is widely accepted that bacteria living in the large bowel are essential for the development of the disease. Intuitively, therefore, a logical approach to treatment would be to use antibiotics. However, antimicrobial chemotherapy has been unsuccessful in managing acute colitis, and has had only limited benefit in long-term treatment. The failure of antibiotics in UC arises from the fact that no-one has tried to identify which bacteria are involved in causing disease, and equally importantly, nobody has targeted appropriate antibiotics to knock out the specific bacteria in question, in a systematic way. Despite this, increasing evidence implicates bacteria living on the lining of the bowel being involved in UC. Our aim, therefore is to identify bacteria colonizing the mucosal surface in the lower large intestine and to determine the antibiotic sensitivities of those the investigators believe to be particularly involved in the disease, such as enterococcit, peptostreptococci and enterobacteria. Because the investigators have already studied resistance to antimicrobial in many mucosal isolate, the investigators plan ot focus on using a combination of two antibiotics in this work. A controlled trial will test the benefit of using these antibiotics over a period of one month and then the patients will be followed up over a six month period. The investigators will be looking for significant long-term improvements, and a reduction in drug use following antibiotic therapy.

Conditions

• Colitis, Ulcerative

Interventions

DRUG

Cefuroxime

DRUG

Ciprofloxacin

DRUG

Clarithromycin

DRUG

Cotrimoxazole

DRUG

Coamoxiclav

DRUG

metronidazole

DRUG

neomycin

DRUG

rifaximin

DRUG

Vancomycin

DRUG

Doxycycline

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Tenovus Scotland

  collaborator OTHER

• University of Dundee

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• George T Macfarlane, BSCc, PHD · University of Dundee

• John H Cummings, MBChB MSc MA · University of Dundee

• Sandra Macfarlane, BSc, PhD · University of Dundee

Study Design

Allocation

NON_RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

NONE

Model

SINGLE_GROUP

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Max Age

79 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2006-07-31

Primary Completion

2008-12-31

Completion

2008-12-31

Countries

• United Kingdom

Study Locations