Treatment endpoints in ulcerative colitis: Does one size fit all?

A treat-to-target strategy in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) involves treatment intensification in order to achieve a pre-determined endpoint. Such uniform and tight disease control has been demonstrated to improve clinical outcomes compared to treatment driven by a clinician’s subjective assessment of symptoms. However, choice of treatment endpoints remains a challenge in management of IBD via a treat-to-target strategy. The treatment endpoints for ulcerative colitis (UC), recommended by the Selecting Therapeutic Targets in Inflammatory Bowel Disease (STRIDE) consensus have changed somewhat over time. The latest STRIDE-II consensus advises immediate (clinical response), intermediate (clinical remission and biochemical normalisation) and long-term treatment (endoscopic healing, absence of disability and normalisation of health-related quality of life, as well as normal growth in children) endpoints in UC. However, achieving deeper levels of remission, such as histologic normalisation or healing of the gut barrier function, may further improve outcomes among UC patients. Generally, all medical therapy should seek to improve short- and long-term mortality and morbidity. Hence treatment endpoints should be chosen based on their ability to predict for improvement in short- and long-term mortality and morbidity. Potential benefits of treatment intensification need to be weighed against the potential harms within an individual patient. In addition, changing therapy that has achieved partial response may lead to worse outcomes, with failure to recapture response on treatment reversion. Patients may also place different emphasis on certain potential benefits and harms of various treatments than clinicians, or may have strong opinions re certain therapies. Potential benefits and harms of therapies, incremental benefits of achieving deeper levels of remission, as well as uncertainties of the same, need to be discussed with individual patients, and a treatment endpoint agreed upon with the clinician. Future research should focus on quantifying the incremental benefits and risks of achieving deeper levels of remission, such that clinicians and patients can make an informed decision about appropriate treatment end-point on an individual basis.

Histological healing induced by tofacitinib in ulcerative colitis: A multicentre study

BACKGROUND

While the efficacy of tofacitinib to induce and maintain clinical and endoscopic remission is well established in ulcerative colitis (UC), little is known about its efficacy to induce histological remission.

METHODS

We conducted a retrospective multicentric cohort study. UC patients ≥ 16 years treated by tofacitinib in whom histological activity has been evaluated before and after induction were eligible. The primary endpoint was the histological remission at the end of induction, assessed by the Nancy index and the epithelial neutrophilic infiltrate.

RESULTS

A total of 42 patients with UC (93% previously exposed to an anti-TNF and 81% to vedolizumab) were included between July 2018 and April 2022 and were followed for a median duration of 84 weeks [IQR, 35-134]. At the end of induction period (whether prolonged or not), 19% and 24% of patients achieved histological remission, using the Nancy index and the epithelial neutrophilic infiltrate, respectively. Survival without tofacitinib discontinuation was significantly longer in patients without epithelial neutrophilic infiltrate at the end of induction (whether prolonged or not) compared with patients with epithelial neutrophilic infiltrate (p = 0.036).

CONCLUSION

Tofacitinib induced histological remission in one fifth to one quarter of patients with UC who have previously failed anti-TNF or/and vedolizumab after induction (whether prolonged or not).

Histologic Evaluation Using the Robarts Histopathology Index in Patients With Ulcerative Colitis in Deep Remission and the Association of Histologic Remission With Risk of Relapse

BACKGROUND

This study prospectively evaluated the risk of relapse according to the status of histologic activity in patients with ulcerative colitis (UC) who achieved deep remission.

METHODS

Patients with UC in clinical remission (partial Mayo score ≤1) and endoscopic remission (ulcerative colitis endoscopic index of severity ≤1) were enrolled. Rectal biopsies were performed in patients, and histologic remission was defined as a Robarts histopathology index of ≤3. Receiver-operating characteristic curve analysis was conducted to determine fecal calprotectin cutoff values for histologic remission. The cumulative risk of relapse was evaluated using the Cox proportional hazards model.

RESULTS

Among the 187 patients enrolled, 82 (43.9%) achieved histologic remission. The best cutoff value of fecal calprotectin for predicting histologic remission was 80 mg/kg (area under the curve of 0.646, sensitivity of 74%, and specificity of 61%). Among 142 patients who were followed up for >3 months, 56 (39.4%) showed clinical relapse during a median of 42 weeks. The risk of relapse was lower in patients with histologic remission than in those with histologic activity (P = .026). In multivariable analysis, histologic remission (hazard ratio [HR], 0.551; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.316-0.958; P = .035), elevated C-reactive protein levels (HR, 3.652; 95% CI, 1.400-9.526; P = .008), and history of steroid use (HR, 2.398; 95% CI, 1.196-4.808; P = .014) were significantly associated with clinical relapse.

CONCLUSIONS

In patients with UC who achieved clinical and endoscopic remission, histologic remission was independently associated with a lower risk of clinical relapse.

Constrained multiple instance learning for ulcerative colitis prediction using histological images

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE

Ulcerative colitis (UC) is an inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) affecting the colon and the rectum characterized by a remitting-relapsing course. To detect mucosal inflammation associated with UC, histology is considered the most stringent criteria. In turn, histologic remission (HR) correlates with improved clinical outcomes and has been recently recognized as a desirable treatment target. The leading biomarker for assessing histologic remission is the presence or absence of neutrophils. Therefore, the finding of this cell in specific colon structures indicates that the patient has UC activity. However, no previous studies based on deep learning have been developed to identify UC based on neutrophils detection using whole-slide images (WSI).

METHODS

The methodological core of this work is a novel multiple instance learning (MIL) framework with location constraints able to determine the presence of UC activity using WSI. In particular, we put forward an effective way to introduce constraints about positive instances to effectively explore additional weakly supervised information that is easy to obtain and enjoy a significant boost to the learning process. In addition, we propose a new weighted embedding to enlarge the relevance of the positive instances.

RESULTS

Extensive experiments on a multi-center dataset of colon and rectum WSIs, PICASSO-MIL, demonstrate that using the location information we can improve considerably the results at WSI-level. In comparison with prior MIL settings, our method allows for 10% improvements in bag-level accuracy.

CONCLUSION

Our model, which introduces a new form of constraints, surpass the results achieved from current state-of-the-art methods that focus on the MIL paradigm. Our method can be applied to other histological concerns where the morphological features determining a positive WSI are tiny and similar to others in the image.

High infliximab trough concentrations are associated with sustained histologic remission in inflammatory bowel disease: a prospective cohort study

BACKGROUND

The threshold concentration of infliximab during maintenance therapy has not been well-defined in relation to histologic remission. The aim of the study is to dentify the maintenance-phase infliximab concentration associated with histologic remission in inflammatory bowel disease patients (IBD).

METHODS

A prospective cohort study was carried out in 104 IBD patients seen at a tertiary care centre in London, Canada. Infliximab trough concentrations were collected during the maintenance phase of treatment and compared between participants with and without evidence of histologic remission. Participants were additionally evaluated for sustained histologic remission, and relapse to active disease.

RESULTS

Participants in histologic remission attained higher mean concentrations of infliximab during the maintenance phase (10.34 ± 0.69 μg/ml) compared to those with persistent disease activity (6.23 ± 0.67 μg/ml, p-value < 0.0001). Additionally, during the maintenance phase, sustained histologic remission was also associated with a higher mean concentration of infliximab (10.81 ± 5.46 μg/ml) compared to those who relapsed to active disease (5.68 ± 3.70, p < 0.001). Overall, participants with a mean infliximab trough concentration greater than 8ug/ml were more likely to have histologic remission (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve, AUROC = 0.72, 95%CI = 0.65-0.84, p < 0.0001) and sustained histologic remission (AUC = 0.77, 95%CI = 0.63-0.91, p = 0.002).

CONCLUSION

Maintenance-phase infliximab trough concentrations greater than 8 μg/ml, which is higher than the currently recommended target concentration, are highly associated with histologic remission and sustained histologic remission.

Accuracy of Oral 67Gallium Citrate Scintigraphy in assessment of inflammatory activity of Crohn's disease

AIM

The main goal in Crohn´s disease (CD) is a sustained suppression of inflammatory activity associated with mucosa healing in endoscopic evaluation. During clinical routine, there are small numbers of good markers to monitor inflammatory activity under treatment. We postulated that Oral ⁶⁷Gallium Citrate Scintigraphy is able to mark inflammatory disease in mucosa and deep inflammation in CD, when used in oral form.

OBJECTIVE

Measure the accuracy of Oral ⁶⁷Gallium Citrate Scintigraphy in intestinal inflammatory activity of Crohn´s disease.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

In a prospective consecutive cross-sectional study from January 2018 to June 2019, the ileocolonic region of 32 patients with CD were studied by dividing into four regions of interest (ROI) from the ileum to the rectum. A total of 128 intestinal segments were analyzed in cluster data. Accuracy values of Oral ⁶⁷Gallium Scintigraphy and colonoscopy tests were evaluated with the histological reference test. Values of the respective receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were obtained  and compared. The reliability between the tests was evaluated by Kappa statistical with the segment-level analyses using variance adjustments. All statistical analyses were performed with a test significance level of 0.05.

RESULTS

The study population included 32 patients with CD (10 men, 22 women; average age 39 years). Disease time was five years on average. Anti-TNFs treatment was found in 71%. The most found phenotype of the Montreal classification was L3. Differences in ROC curves for colonoscopy (0.94) and Oral ⁶⁷Ga Scintigraphy (0.96) did not show significant value (p = 0.32). The sensitivity of scintigraphy to detect intestinal inflammatory activity in CD was 64%, specificity of 96% and accuracy of 84%. A high agreement was found between oral scintigraphy and histological measurements with kappa = 0.64.

CONCLUSIONS

Oral ⁶⁷Ga Scintigraphy had similar accuracy and agreement compared to colonoscopy in the identification of inflammatory activity in Crohn´s Disease. This new approach may be useful and less invasive for long term follow-ups.

What is the role of histopathology in the evaluation of disease activity in Crohn's disease?

Assessment of disease activity is essential for developing and determining appropriate therapy in patients with Crohn's disease. Currently, clinical and endoscopic treatment targets have been proposed, whereas histologic assessment of disease activity is not recommended in expert guidelines. Histologic assessment of disease activity has emerged as an important tool in ulcerative colitis as persistent histological inflammation is associated with clinical relapse, corticosteroid use, hospitalisation, and development of dysplasia. Similar data for Crohn's disease is limited but emerging literature suggests that histologic evaluation of disease activity may have value. This review summarizes the recent literature regarding histologic evaluation of disease activity in Crohn's disease. Correlation between histologic, endoscopic, and other markers of disease activity are discussed. Histologic scoring systems in Crohn's disease are described and practical guidance is provided to gastroenterologists and pathologists on how to report and interpret histologic data.

Endoscopic and histologic response to cyclosporine in ulcerative colitis and their impact on disease outcome: A cohort study

INTRODUCTION

Cyclosporine (CsA) is an effective agent for treating patients with acute steroid-refractory ulcerative colitis (UC). The aim was to assess endoscopic and histologic responses to CsA and to determine their predictive value on UC outcome.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

Consecutive UC patients who received intravenous CsA for an acute refractory UC were included when they had endoscopic assessments with biopsies at entry and, at CsA interruption in responders. Mucosal healing (MH) was defined by Mayo endoscopic subscore ≤1 and, histologic response (HR) by the absence of basal plasmocytosis or a Geboes score <3.1.

RESULTS

Among 21 patients who responded to CsA, MH was achieved in 81%. Survival rates without relapse at 2 years were 79% and 25% in patients with MH and without MH, respectively (p=0.04). HR was observed in 84% of patients according to basal plasmocytosis and in 68% according to Geboes score. Multivariate analysis revealed that a Mayo endoscopic subscore of 0 was the only prognostic factor associated with absence of relapse (RR=12; 95%CI: 1.05-136.79).

CONCLUSION

CsA provides MH and HR in most of UC patients responding to this drug. As suggested with other UC treatments, a complete MH with CsA has a good prognostic value.