Inflammatory Bowel Disease: Advancement in Diagnosis and Medical Management

A special issue of Journal of Personalized Medicine (ISSN 2075-4426). This special issue belongs to the section "Clinical Medicine, Cell, and Organism Physiology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 June 2023) | Viewed by 11823

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Institute for Maternal and Child Health -IRCCS "Burlo Garofolo", Trieste, Italy
Interests: inflammatory bowel disease; pediatrics; pharmacogenomics, translational medicine, intestinal organoids
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

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Guest Editor
1. Institute for Maternal and Child Health -IRCCS "Burlo Garofolo", Trieste, Italy
2. Department of Medical, Surgical and Health Sciences, University of Trieste, Trieste, Italy
Interests: pharmacogenetics; pharmacokinetics; pediatrics; inflammatory chronic diseases; acute lymphoblastic leukemia

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The diagnosis, monitoring, and surveillance of IBD patients require a personalized evaluation to guide treatment decisions. To date, a curative pharmacological therapy for IBD does not exist and the therapeutic approach is mainly aimed at the treatment and control of inflammation, through drugs capable of inducing and maintaining remission. Given the lack of clinical predictors, patients are still treated by using a “one size fits all” approach. Therefore, there is a growing need to offer a personalized approach for each individual patient combining early action with proactive management through the use of precision medicine tools.

In this Special Issue, recent advances and problems concerning the diagnosis and treatment of IBD will be addressed. This Special Issue will include studies on specific markers and novel pathways involved in IBD pathogenesis that may be used for an early diagnosis and/or for personalized precision medicine. Recent advances on the use of patient-derived innovative cellular models, such as organoids, to study the functional role of specific new therapeutic targets and to screen novel drugs with a direct action on intestinal epithelial cells to shift towards an individualized medicine approach in IBD will be also encouraged.

Original research articles and reviews focusing on these topics will be included in this Special Issue.

Dr. Marianna Lucafò
Prof. Dr. Giuliana Decorti 
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • inflammatory bowel diseases
  • diagnostic biomarker
  • pharmacogenomic
  • drug discovery
  • intestinal organoids
  • novel therapeutic targets

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Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

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10 pages, 482 KiB  
Article
Quality of Life in Patients with Acute Severe Ulcerative Colitis: Long-Term Follow-Up Results from the CONSTRUCT Trial
by Laith Alrubaiy, Hayley A. Hutchings, Andrea Louca, Frances Rapport, Alan Watkins, Shaji Sebastian and John G. Williams
J. Pers. Med. 2022, 12(12), 2039; https://doi.org/10.3390/jpm12122039 - 9 Dec 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1782
Abstract
Background: there is currently limited research examining the QoL of patients with Ulcerative colitis (UC) following treatment of acute severe colitis (ASUC). Objective: to examine the long-term QoL of ASUC patients enrolled in the CONSTRUCT trial following treatment of UC with infliximab or [...] Read more.
Background: there is currently limited research examining the QoL of patients with Ulcerative colitis (UC) following treatment of acute severe colitis (ASUC). Objective: to examine the long-term QoL of ASUC patients enrolled in the CONSTRUCT trial following treatment of UC with infliximab or ciclosporin and to compare the differences in the QoL between the two drug treatments over time. Methods: The CONSTRUCT trial examined the cost and clinical effectiveness of infliximab and ciclosporin treatments for acute severe UC. We collected QoL questionnaire data from patients during the active trial period up to 36 months. Following trial completion, we contacted patients postannually for up to a maximum of 84 months. We collected QoL data using a disease-specific (CUCQ, or CUCQ+ for patients who had colectomy surgery) or generic (EQ5D-3L) questionnaire. We analysed QoL scores to determine if there was any difference over time and between treatments in generic or disease-specific QoL. Results: Following initial treatment with infliximab and ciclosporin, patients experienced a statistically significant improvement in both the generic and disease-specific QoL at three months. Generic scores remained fairly static for the whole follow-up period, reducing only slightly up to 84 months. Disease-specific scores showed a much sharper improvement up to 2 years with a gradual reduction in QoL up to 84 months. Generic and disease-specific QoL remained higher than baseline values. There was no significant difference between treatments in any of the QoL scores. Conclusions: Both infliximab and ciclosporin improve QoL following initial treatment for ASUC. QoL scores remain higher than at admission up to 84 months post-treatment. Full article
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9 pages, 1390 KiB  
Article
Atomic Force Microscopy Application for the Measurement of Infliximab Concentration in Healthy Donors and Pediatric Patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease
by Debora Curci, Marianna Lucafò, Pietro Parisse, Giuliana Decorti, Matteo Bramuzzo, Loredana Casalis and Gabriele Stocco
J. Pers. Med. 2022, 12(6), 948; https://doi.org/10.3390/jpm12060948 - 10 Jun 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1927
Abstract
The use of infliximab has completely changed the therapeutic landscape in inflammatory bowel disease. However, despite its proven efficacy to induce and maintain clinical remission, increasing evidence suggests that treatment failure may be associated with inadequate drug blood concentrations. The introduction of biosensors [...] Read more.
The use of infliximab has completely changed the therapeutic landscape in inflammatory bowel disease. However, despite its proven efficacy to induce and maintain clinical remission, increasing evidence suggests that treatment failure may be associated with inadequate drug blood concentrations. The introduction of biosensors based on different nanostructured materials for the rapid quantification of drugs has been proposed for therapeutic drug monitoring. This study aimed to apply atomic force microscopy (AFM)-based nanoassay for the measurement of infliximab concentration in serum samples of healthy donors and pediatric IBD patients. This assay measured the height signal variation of a nanostructured gold surface covered with a self-assembled monolayer of alkanethiols. Inside this monolayer, we embedded the DNA conjugated with a tumor necrosis factor able to recognize the drug. The system was initially fine-tuned by testing known infliximab concentrations (0, 20, 30, 40, and 50 nM) in buffer and then spiking the same concentrations of infliximab into the sera of healthy donors, followed by testing pediatric IBD patients. A good correlation between height variation and drug concentration was found in the buffer in both healthy donors and pediatric IBD patients (p-value < 0.05), demonstrating the promising use of AFM nanoassay in TDM. Full article
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8 pages, 452 KiB  
Article
Appendiceal Orifice Inflammation Is Associated with Lower Rate of Complete Endoscopic Remission in Patients with Ulcerative Colitis
by Chang Kyo Oh, Han Hee Lee, Jin Su Kim, Bo-In Lee and Young-Seok Cho
J. Pers. Med. 2022, 12(5), 748; https://doi.org/10.3390/jpm12050748 - 5 May 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 3201
Abstract
Appendiceal orifice inflammation (AOI) is commonly considered a skip lesion in ulcerative colitis (UC). However, the clinical significance of AOI in UC patients remains controversial. This study aimed to evaluate the clinical feature and long-term outcomes of AOI by comparing UC patients with [...] Read more.
Appendiceal orifice inflammation (AOI) is commonly considered a skip lesion in ulcerative colitis (UC). However, the clinical significance of AOI in UC patients remains controversial. This study aimed to evaluate the clinical feature and long-term outcomes of AOI by comparing UC patients with and without AOI. This study was conducted as a retrospective design of patients who were newly diagnosed or referred within 3 months after diagnosis at Seoul St. Mary’s Hospital from 1 January 2001 to 31 December 2020. All patients underwent index and follow-up colonoscopies. The long-term outcomes involved achieving complete endoscopic remission (ER), use of biologics, hospitalization, and proximal disease extension. Complete ER was defined as Mayo endoscopic subscore 0. In total, 318 UC patients were included, of which 140 had AOI. The baseline characteristics were not significantly different between AOI and non-AOI groups. The cumulative risk of complete ER was a significant difference between AOI and non-AOI groups (p = 0.041). The other cumulative risks of disease outcomes were not significantly different between AOI and non-AOI groups (use of biologics, p = 0.542; hospitalization, p = 0.795; proximal disease extension, p = 0.403). The multivariate Cox regression analysis also revealed that AOI was the significant factor of complete ER (hazard ratio, 0.656; 95% confidence interval, 0.462–0.932; p = 0.019) in UC patients. AOI shows a significant association with lower rate of complete ER in UC patients. Therefore, a meticulous treatment strategy may be recommended to achieve complete ER in UC patients with AOI. Full article
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Review

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16 pages, 721 KiB  
Review
Creeping Fat in Crohn’s Disease—Surgical, Histological, and Radiological Approaches
by Ioanna Aggeletopoulou, Efthymios P. Tsounis, Athanasia Mouzaki and Christos Triantos
J. Pers. Med. 2023, 13(7), 1029; https://doi.org/10.3390/jpm13071029 - 21 Jun 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 4265
Abstract
During the course of Crohn’s disease, the response of mesenteric adipose tissue to the production of inflammatory mediators and bacterial invasion through the intestinal mucosa results in the formation of creeping fat. Creeping fat describes the arresting finger-like projections that surround the inflamed [...] Read more.
During the course of Crohn’s disease, the response of mesenteric adipose tissue to the production of inflammatory mediators and bacterial invasion through the intestinal mucosa results in the formation of creeping fat. Creeping fat describes the arresting finger-like projections that surround the inflamed bowel. In this review, the microscopic and macroscopic features of creeping fat and histological evidence for the importance of this tissue are discussed. Moreover, the most recent insights into the radiological assessment of creeping fat in patients with Crohn’s disease are reported. Advances in imaging techniques have revolutionized the possibility of visualization and quantification of adipose tissue depots with excellent accuracy. Visceral fat has been significantly correlated with various Crohn’s-disease-related outcomes. Despite the difficulties in distinguishing physiologic perienteric fat from creeping fat, the growing interest in fat-wrapping in Crohn’s disease has rejuvenated radiologic research. With regard to the noninvasive fat-wrapping assessment, a novel CT enterography-based mesenteric creeping fat index has been developed for the mitigation of the confounding effect of normal retroperitoneal and perienteric adipose tissue. Research on machine learning algorithms and computational radiomics in conjunction with mechanistic studies may be the key for the elucidation of the complex role of creeping fat in Crohn’s disease. Full article
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