A Novel Inflammatory Bowel Disease Marker

Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) includes two disease states, ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn’s disease (CD), and is increasing in prevalence in developed as well as developing countries. Both disease states are chronic and can have debilitating effects on patients’ lives. As a result, management of IBD involves ongoing evaluation of disease status and intensive treatment of symptoms, which vary in frequency and severity between patients. While biomarkers to determine disease activity have been identified, their value for predicting long-term disease outcome is controversial. A reliable, prognostic biomarker that could determine relapse risk would have great potential implications in improving patient management and utilization of clinical resources. To date, there is no biomarker that can reliably predict the chance of relapse or future disease development.

Researchers from UCLA’s Digestive Diseases Research Center have identified a biomarker that correlates with disease development in UC patients. Using a comprehensive set of criteria, the researchers quantified disease development in patients for two years after biomarker analysis. UC patients stratified into the ‘low-risk’ biomarker group had significantly lower disease development scores (~45%) compared to patients in the ‘high-risk’ group.