JUN 21, 2018 7:30 AM PDT

Keynote Presentation: Paving the Path Towards Precision Medicine in Inflammatory Bowel Diseases

Speaker

Abstract

Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis also known as inflammatory bowel diseases or IBD, are characterized by chronic, recurrent inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract, which results from the interplay between genetic predisposition, altered immune response, intestinal microbial dysbiosis and environmental factors. The course of the disease is variable, with some patients having much more aggressive disease than others. Half of the patients will develop severe complications like strictures, fistulas and abscesses, which require surgery. In addition, some patients experience frequent relapses while others achieve prolonged remission without any additional therapy. Such variability in prognosis represents the difference between an excellent long-term outcome or progressive disability. Therefore, the main challenge in managing IBD is the early detection, ideally at diagnosis, of patients with potentially severe disease course and variability in treatment outcomes. Thus, if precision medicine is to be applied in IBD, it will require the stratification of patients with a high risk of relapse and complications, and better characterization of patients who may respond preferentially to specific therapies. In this presentation I will highlight current advances towards the integration of clinical and molecular phenotypes for early prediction of complicated disease course at diagnosis and response to biological therapy. I will also highlight the current efforts of the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation to build the largest biorepository and research exchange platform called IBD Plexus, which aims to integrate longitudinal clinical data and patient reported outcomes from than 40,000 patients along with genetic and multi-omics profiles from 7,000 IBD patients, and how this platform will accelerate the path towards precision medicine in IBD.


JUN 21, 2018 7:30 AM PDT

Keynote Presentation: Paving the Path Towards Precision Medicine in Inflammatory Bowel Diseases