Prediction of treatment outcome and relapse in inflammatory bowel disease.

INTRODUCTION: Prediction of treatment outcome and clinical relapse in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), either ulcerative colitis (UC) or Crohn's disease (CD), is particularly important because therapeutics for IBD are not always effective and patients in remission could frequently relapse. Because undergoing endoscopy for the purpose is sometimes invasive and burdensome to patients, the performance of surrogate biomarkers has been investigated. Areas covered: We particularly featured the performance of patient symptoms, blood markers including C-reactive protein (CRP), fecal markers including fecal calprotectin (Fcal) and fecal immunochemical test (FIT) for prediction of endoscopic mucosal healing (MH) and prediction of relapse. Studies of other modalities and therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) have also been explored. Expert commentary: Meticulous evaluation of patient symptoms could be predictive for MH in UC. CRP and Fcal may be accurate in prediction of MH of CD when MH is evaluated throughout the entire intestine including the small bowel. Repeated measurements of fecal markers including Fcal and FIT in patients with clinical remission would raise predictability of relapse. Prediction of treatment outcome by monitoring with blood markers including CRP, fecal markers including Fcal, and TDM has frequently been performed in recent clinical trials and shown to be effective.