Monthly Archives: January 2018

The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) exercises enforcement discretion for fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) for Clostridium difficile infection not responsive to standard therapies. An investigational new drug (IND) is required for… Continue reading →

Biologics and thiopurines are standard therapies in the management of Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC). Reactive therapeutic drug concentration monitoring (TDM) provides insights into the mechanism of loss of response and allows effec… Continue reading →

The use of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) is prevalent in patients with ulcerative colitis (UC). Most randomized clinical trials (RCT) of herbal supplements in UC studied inactive or mild-to-moderate UC, and they were small studies. We pr… Continue reading →

The utility of vedolizumab (VDZ) trough levels (VTL) in the management of patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) has not been well defined. The aims of this study are to determine: the median VTL and frequency of antibodies, the correlation of … Continue reading →

The Short Inflammatory Bowel Disease Questionnaire (SIBDQ), a validated inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) specific measure of health related quality of life (HRQOL), is a proprietary instrument. We aimed to create and evaluate a novel measure of HRQOL a… Continue reading →

IBD studies over the past decade have confirmed association to 250 gene loci. A handful of associations have led to specific validated functional variants highlighting intracellular response to microbes and regulation of adaptive immunity in IBD pathog… Continue reading →

Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), along with other immune-mediated disorders are considered as idiopathic disease entities with no clearly identified etiology. However, they can be triggered by medications, immunotherapy and manipulation of gut microb… Continue reading →

We recently described cobblestone (Cob) lesions in the ileum of SAMP1/YitFc (SAMP) mice, which is the only inbred mouse strain with polygenic predisposition to Crohn’s disease(CD)-like ileitis. Herein, we quantified the mRNA gene expression differenc… Continue reading →

Current guidelines endorsed by several societies suggest the use of spray chromoendoscopy (CE) to improve dysplasia detection during surveillance colonoscopy in patients with long standing IBD. Our goal was to compare dysplasia detection rates between … Continue reading →

Although traditional treatment algorithms for Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC) are based on stepwise drug failure, pathways are shifting to a more individualized, risk-stratified approach. There is a perception that insurance policies may not have implemented this paradigm shift (1); particularly regarding access to vedolizumab (VDZ), an anti-α4β7 integrin antibody approved for the treatment of UC and CD. This study evaluated VDZ patient access by analyzing policy information from the Managed Markets Insight & Technology (MMIT) database (2). Continue reading →