Figure 1.
Trends in mortality and colectomy rate in different time periods. Mortality in acute severe ulcerative colitis (UC) in the pre-steroid era was up to 75%.12,13 Steroids (1955) reduced mortality to 7%.14 Early surgery (1974) definitively reduced deaths to about 1%.17 The mortality rate of acute severe UC has remained unchanged at about 1% since 1974.40 The need for colectomy was reduced by the introduction of rescue therapies.44,52.