Defining microbial predictors of responsiveness to biologic therapies in Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis (IBD-RESPONSE)

Research summary

Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis (UC) are types of a bowel condition known as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and the symptoms (diarrhoea, pain, fatigue) have a major impact on daily life. IBD affects around 1 in 125 people in the UK and this is expected to rise to 1 in 100 by 2028. "Biologics" are powerful medications that are given to reduce inflammation in IBD. These treatments can be effective but up to 40% of patients don't respond, and in those that do, many don't respond well enough to stay on the drug after one year of treatment. Unfortunately, we have no way to predict which patients are most likely to benefit from treatment (known as responders), and we do not fully understand how medications work in responders. As these drugs may have serious side effects and are expensive to the NHS, this lack of understanding is a major obstacle in deciding which treatment is best to give to an individual patient, and when to give it to them in order to have the greatest benefit and the least risk. Recent data from small studies in people with IBD and larger studies of people with cancer, show that certain bacteria in stool may predict who will respond or fail to respond to treatments. We will recruit 1,325 patients starting biological therapy in IBD as part of routine NHS care from 40 centres across the UK. We will collect stool, bloods and where possible intestinal biopsies during routine endoscopy (camera into the gut), to study the gut bacteria before, and during, these treatments.

Principal Investigator

Prof Jack Satsangi

Contact us

Email: ctf.research@ouh.nhs.uk

IRAS number

295742