Crohn's disease (CD) is a chronic inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) that cannot be cured with either surgery or currently available medical therapy. CD is characterized histologically by infiltration of the intestinal mucosa and submocosa with chronic inflammatory cells and clinically by abdominal pain, diarrhea, and weight loss. How these inflammatory cells are attracted to the intestinal mucosa is not known, but adhesion molecules are believed to play an important role in lymphocyte transmigration into the intestine. ISIS 2302 is a 20 base oligodeoxynucleotide designed to specifically hybridize to a sequence of the human intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) messenger RNA (mRNA), thus blocking translation of this message. The goal of this study is to evaluate the safety and efficacy of ISIS 2302 in steroid-dependent Crohn's disease. We hypothesize that inhibition of ICAM-1 will decrease intestinal inflammation and lead to clinical symptom improvement in patients with Crohn's disease. To date one patient has completed the study and enrollment remains open.
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