The Impact of Inflammatory Bowel Disease in Canada 2018: IBD Research Landscape in Canada

Novel Biomarkers for Inflammatory Bowel Disease and Colorectal Cancer: An Interplay between Metabolic Dysregulation and Excessive Inflammation

Persistent inflammation can trigger altered epigenetic, inflammatory, and bioenergetic states. Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is an idiopathic disease characterized by chronic inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract, with evidence of subsequent metabolic syndrome disorder. Studies have demonstrated that as many as 42% of patients with ulcerative colitis (UC) who are found to have high-grade dysplasia, either already had colorectal cancer (CRC) or develop it within a short time. The presence of low-grade dysplasia is also predictive of CRC. Many signaling pathways are shared among IBD and CRC, including cell survival, cell proliferation, angiogenesis, and inflammatory signaling pathways. Current IBD therapeutics target a small subset of molecular drivers of IBD, with many focused on the inflammatory aspect of the pathways. Thus, there is a great need to identify biomarkers of both IBD and CRC, that can be predictive of therapeutic efficacy, disease severity, and predisposition to CRC. In this study, we explored the changes in biomarkers specific for inflammatory, metabolic, and proliferative pathways, to help determine the relevance to both IBD and CRC. Our analysis demonstrated, for the first time in IBD, the loss of the tumor suppressor protein Ras associated family protein 1A (RASSF1A), via epigenetic changes, the hyperactivation of the obligate kinase of the NOD2 pathogen recognition receptor (receptor interacting protein kinase 2 [RIPK2]), the loss of activation of the metabolic kinase, AMP activated protein kinase (AMPKα1), and, lastly, the activation of the transcription factor and kinase Yes associated protein (YAP) kinase, that is involved in proliferation of cells. The expression and activation status of these four elements are mirrored in IBD, CRC, and IBD-CRC patients and, importantly, in matched blood and biopsy samples. The latter would suggest that biomarker analysis can be performed non-invasively, to understand IBD and CRC, without the need for invasive and costly endoscopic analysis. This study, for the first time, illustrates the need to understand IBD or CRC beyond an inflammatory perspective and the value of therapeutics directed to reset altered proliferative and metabolic states within the colon. The use of such therapeutics may truly drive patients into remission.

Research hotspot and trend analysis in the diagnosis of inflammatory bowel disease: A machine learning bibliometric analysis from 2012 to 2021

Aims

This study aimed to conduct a bibliometric analysis of the relevant literature on the diagnosis of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), and show its current status, hot spots, and development trends.

Methods

The literature on IBD diagnosis was acquired from the Science Citation Index Expanded of the Web of Science Core Collection. Co-occurrence and cooperation relationship analysis of authors, institutions, countries, journals, references, and keywords in the literature were carried out through CiteSpace software and the Online Analysis platform of Literature Metrology. At the same time, the relevant knowledge maps were drawn, and the keywords cluster analysis and emergence analysis were performed.

Results

14,742 related articles were included, showing that the number of articles in this field has increased in recent years. The results showed that PEYRIN-BIROULET L from the University Hospital of Nancy-Brabois was the author with the most cumulative number of articles. The institution with the most articles was Mayo Clin, and the United States was far ahead in the article output and had a dominant role. Keywords analysis showed that there was a total of 818 keywords, which were mainly focused on the research of related diseases caused or coexisted by IBD, such as colorectal cancer and autoimmune diseases, and the diagnosis and treatment methods of IBD. Emerging analysis showed that future research hotspots and trends might be the treatment of IBD and precision medicine.

Conclusion

This research was the first bibliometric analysis of publications in the field of IBD diagnosis using visualization software and data information mining, and obtained the current status, hotspots, and development of this field. The future research hotspot might be the precision medicine of IBD, and the mechanism needed to be explored in depth to provide a theoretical basis for its clinical application.

What Are the Most Challenging Aspects of Inflammatory Bowel Disease? An International Survey of Gastroenterologists Comparing Developed and Developing Countries

Background and Aims

As inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) becomes more prevalent, the challenges that gastroenterologists face in managing these patients evolve. We aimed to describe the most important challenges facing gastroenterologists from around the world and compare these between those working in developed and developing countries.

Methods

An online questionnaire was developed, and a link distributed to gastroenterologists. Data were analyzed descriptively using Friedman and Wilcoxon matched-pair signed rank tests to compare rankings for responses. Mann-Whitney U tests were used to compare rankings between responses from gastroenterologists from developed and developing countries. Lower scores reflected greater challenges.

Results

Of 872 who started, 397 gastroenterologists (45.5%) completed the survey. Respondents represented 65 countries (226 [56.9%] from developed countries). Overall, the challenge ranked most important (smallest number) was increasing IBD prevalence (13.6%). There were significant differences in mean ranking scores for many simple aspects of care for those from developing countries compared to providers from developed countries, such as access to simple IBD treatments (5.52 vs. 6.02, p = 0.01), access to anti-TNF drugs including dose escalation (3.33 vs. 3.93, p < 0.01), access to good stoma care (2.57 vs. 3.03, p < 0.001), access to therapeutic drug monitoring (1.47 vs. 1.84, p < 0.001), and access to care for people from low socioeconomic status (2.77 vs. 3.37, p < 0.001).

Conclusions

Increasing IBD prevalence is seen by gastroenterologists as the greatest challenge facing them. There are significant differences between the IBD challenges facing gastroenterologists from developed and developing countries that reflect inequities in access to health care.

The impact of primary sclerosing cholangitis or inflammatory bowel disease on cholangiocarcinoma phenotype, therapy, and survival

Background and Aim

Primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC), with or without inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), confers the risk of cholangiocarcinoma. Isolated IBD may be an independent risk factor for cholangiocarcinoma. We sought to compare cholangiocarcinoma phenotype and outcomes between patients with PSC, IBD, and neither.

Methods

Patients with malignancy were separated into cohorts by the presence of PSC and IBD. Data regarding demographics, clinical presentation, therapeutic regimens, and survival were collected. Statistical analysis was carried out using GraphPad and R‐Studio.

Results

Of 946 patients, 22 had PSC, and 18 had isolated IBD. PSC and IBD patients were younger than controls (P < 0.001, P = 0.01). Cholangiocarcinoma prevalence was estimated at 0.01% for IBD patients, 0.6% for PSC patients, and 0.002% for all other patients. All cohorts most often presented at stage 4. PSC patients presented more often at stage 3 (P = 0.04) and with perihilar disease (P = 0.001). Patients with PSC or IBD received less chemotherapy (P = 0.004, 0.01). Median overall survivals were 15 months (PSC), 11 months (IBD), and 10 months (controls) (P = 0.79). Patients with intrahepatic tumors had longer survival (P < 0.001). Curative intent resection improved survival in all cohorts (P < 0.001). Multivariate regression identified resection as a predictor of improved survival. Extrahepatic, perihilar, gallbladder, and unspecified biliary tumors were predictors of death.

Conclusions

Cholangiocarcinoma presents at a late stage and portends dismal survival regardless of PSC or IBD status. Survival was dependent on tumor location and surgical resection. These data suggest that efforts should focus on developing protocols that are able to detect and treat cholangiocarcinoma in high‐risk populations (PSC) at an early stage.