Review article: moving towards common therapeutic goals in Crohn's disease and rheumatoid arthritis.

Novel therapeutic strategies in CD based on tight control of objective signs of inflammation are expected to change disease course and patients' lives by halting progression or, ideally, preventing the occurrence of bowel damage. Most of these strategies require validation in prospective studies, whereas several disease-modification trials have addressed these issues in rheumatoid arthritis over the last decade. The recent approval of new drugs in CD such as vedolizumab and ustekinumab should facilitate initiation of disease-modification trials in CD in the near future.