In a compassionate-use study that included 66 children between the ages of 3 and 16 years, the safety profile of long-term mesalamine therapy (10 to 93 mg/kg/day) was similar to that observed among adult patients enrolled in the study. In addition, in a retrospective study of 732 pediatric patients with inflammatory bowel disease (153 of whom were treated with mesalamine), D'Agata, et al. concluded that mesalamine was safe and well tolerated when used long term at doses ranging from 13 to 111 mg/kg/day. Although few clinical studies of mesalamine have been performed in children, pediatric gastroenterologists use mesalamine to treat children with inflammatory bowel disease, and doses higher than those proposed for this study (up to 100 mg/kg/day) have been recommended.