Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) comprising Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis is a chronic immunologically mediated disease at the intersection of complex interactions between genetics, environment and gut microbiota.
IBD achieved high-prevalence in the North America and Dietary fiber (particularly fruits and vegetables), saturated fats, depression and impaired sleep, and low vitamin D levels have all been associated with incident IBD.
The appropriate management of patients with IBD incorporates the integration of biomarkers (fecal and serologic), radiology findings, and endoscopic studies, together with clinical assessment. Although clinical assessment remains a critical part of patient care, these investigations can be used to identify patients with IBD, determine prognosis, assess disease activity, predict response to therapeutic strategies, assess response to specific medical therapies. The use of fecal and serologic markers, therapeutic drug monitoring, and genetic markers for assessing the response to therapy is an evolving area over the past several years that has gained increasing recognition. Several “sero-genetic markers” have been identified as useful, and specific areas of focus will include fecal markers, calprotectin and lactoferrin, and serologic markers, C-reactive protein (CRP), erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), peripheral-antinuclear cytoplasmic antibody (p-ANCA), anti-Saccharomyces antibody (ASCA), and serum albumin. In addition, the role of therapeutic drug monitoring has gained recognition and is now being integrated into clinical practice. Use of azathioprine and 6-mercaptopurine as well as anti-tumor necrosis factor (TNF) therapy has pioneered this novel area.
Genefron research:
Genefron analyzed data bases for using and interpreting inflammatory markers for understanding disease activity. Increasing evidence for their ability to also help assess disease prognosis is emerging. By combining multiple datasets of patients and different types of markers (with no bios to a specific type of dataset) Genefron can detect biomarkers for predicting primary response to TNF blockers and other biological treatments.