Biomarkers for predicting long-term outcomes in ulcerative colitis

Ulcerative colitis (UC) is a chronic inflammatory disease affecting around 2% of the general population in North America and Western Europe, and its incidence is rising worldwide. Patients with UC have varying prognosis: some patients have good long-term outcomes after initiation treatment, while some will suffer from relapsing and exacerbated (worsening) disease. Therefore, predicting the prognosis of UC patients is important for selecting the best treatment approaches and conducting personalized management. Nowadays, identifying effective indicators for predicting the prognosis in UC is receiving considerable attention. Biomarkers (biological molecules found in blood, other body fluids, or tissues) are non-invasive, easy-available and promising indicators for assessing disease activity and predicting prognosis in UC. This study aims at identifying useful biomarkers and investigating their predictive ability for long-term outcomes in UC.

The primary objective of this study is to investigate the relationship between potentially useful biomarkers and long-term outcomes, such as endoscopic remission (when there is no inflammation visible during examination of the affected area with a small camera), histological remission (when there is no detectable disease seen in a piece of tissue removed and examined under a microscope) and colectomy (surgical removal of part of the large bowel/colon).

This analysis will assess the relationship between potentially useful biomarkers and the likelihood of achieving long-term outcomes. The analysis will also assess the ability of the chosen biomarkers to predict disease outcomes. Further analysis by treatment allocation, disease activity at baseline, age and gender will be performed. The results will explore useful biomarkers and may help in selecting treatment approaches for patients with different prognosis in UC.