A Microsimulation Model to Determine the Cost-Effectiveness of Treat-to-Target Strategies for Crohn's Disease

Common Instances of Low-value Care in Inflammatory Bowel Diseases

Value-based care focuses on improving the quality, effectiveness, and efficiency of health care while controlling costs. Low-value care implies services or interventions that provide little or no benefit to patients, have the potential to cause harm, incur unnecessary cost to patients, or waste limited health care resources. In this review, we discuss common instances of low-value care along the spectrum of management in inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD). These include low value care in: (1) diagnosis and monitoring of IBD: utilization of serological markers to screen and diagnose IBD, over-reliance on symptoms for monitoring disease, failure to employ treat-to-target strategies in symptomatic patients with IBD, and annual surveillance colonoscopies in patients at low risk of developing dysplasia; (2) treatment of IBD: use of 5-aminosalicylates in Crohn's disease, continuation of 5-aminosalicylates after escalation to immunosuppressive therapy, chronic corticosteroid use without steroid-sparing strategies, step therapy for Crohn's disease, failure to optimize tumor necrosis factor antagonists in patients with active disease and subsequently de-intensification of therapies in those who have achieved stable remission; and (3) management of hospitalized patients with IBD: routine cross-sectional imaging for patients with IBD presenting to the emergency department, withholding pharmacological prophylaxis for venous thromboembolism in patients hospitalized with IBD flare, and prolonged use of high-dose intravenous corticosteroids in patients with acute severe ulcerative colitis. This review is meant to bring attention to value-based care in IBD and provide guidance to treating practitioners. Future studies on systematic evaluation of high- and low-value care in patients with IBD are warranted.

Treat to target in Crohn's disease: A practical guide for clinicians

A treat-to-target (T2T) approach applies the principles of early intervention and tight disease control to optimise long-term outcomes in Crohn's disease. The Selecting Therapeutic Targets in Inflammatory Bowel Disease (STRIDE)-II guidelines specify short, intermediate, and long-term treatment goals, documenting specific treatment targets to be achieved at each of these timepoints. Scheduled appraisal of Crohn's disease activity against pre-defined treatment targets at these timepoints remains central to determining whether current therapy should be continued or modified. Consensus treatment targets in Crohn's disease comprise combination clinical and patient-reported outcome remission, in conjunction with biomarker normalisation and endoscopic healing. Although the STRIDE-II guidelines endorse the pursuit of endoscopic healing, clinicians must consider that this may not always be appropriate, acceptable, or achievable in all patients. This underscores the need to engage patients at the outset in an effort to personalise care and individualise treatment targets. The use of non-invasive biomarkers such as faecal calprotectin in conjunction with cross-sectional imaging techniques, particularly intestinal ultrasound, holds great promise; as do emerging treatment targets such as transmural healing. Two randomised clinical trials, namely, CALM and STARDUST, have evaluated the efficacy of a T2T approach in achieving endoscopic endpoints in patients with Crohn's disease. Findings from these studies reflect that patient subgroups and Crohn's disease characteristics likely to benefit most from a T2T approach, remain to be clarified. Moreover, outside of clinical trials, data pertaining to the real-world effectiveness of a T2T approach remains scare, highlighting the need for pragmatic real-world studies. Despite the obvious promise of a T2T approach, a lack of guidance to support its integration into real-world clinical practice has the potential to limit its uptake. This highlights the need to describe strategies, processes, and models of care capable of supporting the integration and execution of a T2T approach in real-world clinical practice. Hence, this review seeks to examine the current and emerging literature to provide clinicians with practical guidance on how to incorporate the principles of T2T into routine clinical practice for the management of Crohn's disease.

Crohn's disease shared decision making intervention leads to more patients choosing combination therapy: a cluster randomised controlled trial

BACKGROUND

Crohn's disease requires effective patient-clinician communication for successful illness and medication management. Shared decision making (SDM) has been suggested to improve communication around early intensive therapy. However, effective evidence-based SDM interventions for Crohn's disease are lacking, and the impact of SDM on Crohn's disease decision making and choice of therapy is unclear.

AIM

To test the impact of SDM on choice of therapy, quality of the decision and provider trust compared to standard Crohn's disease care.

METHODS

We conducted a multi-site cluster randomised controlled trial in 14 diverse gastroenterology practices in the US.

RESULTS

A total of 158 adult patients with Crohn's disease within 15 years of their diagnosis, with no prior Crohn's disease complications, and who were candidates to receive immunomodulators or biologics, participated in the study. Among these, 99 received the intervention and 59 received standard care. Demographics were similar between groups, although there were more women assigned to standard care, and a slightly shorter disease duration among those in the intervention group. Participants in the intervention group more frequently chose combination therapy (25% versus 5% control, p < 0.001), had a significantly lower decisional conflict (p < 0.05) and had greater trust in their provider (p < 0.05).

CONCLUSIONS

With rapidly expanding medication choices for Crohn's disease and slow uptake of early intensive therapy, SDM can personalise treatment strategies and has the potential to move the field of Crohn's disease management forward with an ultimate goal of consistently treating this disease early and intensively in appropriate patients.

TRIAL REGISTRATION

Evaluating a Shared Decision Making Program for Crohn's Disease, ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier NCT02084290 https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02084290.

Small bowel Crohn's disease: optimal modality for diagnosis and monitoring

PURPOSE OF REVIEW

This paper reviews different imaging options for small bowel (SB) Crohn's disease (CD) patients.

RECENT FINDINGS

In total, 80% of patients suffering from CD have SB involvement, being the exclusive manifestation in 30% of cases. As the proximal disease is related to poor response to treatment, a higher rate of stenosis and a greater need for surgical treatment, a SB assessment should be performed. This evaluation should be done not only once the disease has been diagnosed but periodically. The former to determine the extent of the disease, and the latter according to a treat-to-target strategy. Available techniques such as magnetic resonance imaging, intestinal ultrasound and capsule endoscopy (CE) have shown good accuracy parameters in CD patients. Cross-sectional studies are superior for penetrating and stricturing disease, whereas CE is excellent for proximal involvement and mucosal healing. Local expertise and availability may lead the election between techniques, nevertheless, they should not be considered as competitors but as complementary tools.

SUMMARY

SB involvement in CD patients is frequent and related to poorer outcomes. Hence, SB evaluation should be screened after diagnosis and routinely during the follow-up.