Greece

Name of group: Hellenic Group for the Study of Inflammatory Bowel Diseases (EOMIFNE)

Number of active members: 176 regular members and 18 honorary members

Number of meetings per year: one (1) annual congress and various one-day meetings and webinars (approximately three to six per year). Training school for Inflammatory Bowel Disease with five annual two-day lessons, accepting participants (specialists or trainees) from all over Greece who have a special interest in Inflammatory Bowel Diseases and want to increase their knowledge.

© EOMIFNE

© EOMIFNE

Croatia

Name of group: Croatian Society of IBD, Croatian Medical Assocation & IBD Section, Croatian Society of Gastroenterology

Number of active members:  70

Number of meetings per year: 4

Name of president and secretary: Željko Krznarić and Marko Brinar

National Representatives: Željko Krznarić and Ante Tonkić

Joined ECCO in: 2001 (Boris Vucelic, ECCO Honorary Member, was one of the founders of ECCO)

Incidence of IBD in the country: Zagreb City and Area 2010: UC 3.3/10⁵, CD 3.3/10

Primorsko-Goranska County, Croatia, 2000–2004: UC 4.3/10⁵, CD 7.0/10

Vukovarsko-Srijemska County, Croatia, 2001–2010: UC 3.5/10⁵, CD 0.95/10

Today we are seeking and collecting new data since we are aware of a significant increase in the incidence of IBD during the last decade.

Ukraine

Name of group: Ukrainian IBD Group

Number of active members: 87

Number of meetings per year: 2

President and Secretary: A. Dorofeyev and T. Zviagintzeva (Co-presidents), Yulia Dynia (Secretary).

National Representatives:  A. Dorofeyev, T. Zviagintzeva

Joined ECCO in: 2008

Nuha Yassin © Nuha Yassin

It gives me great pleasure to introduce you to ECCO’s new Treasurer, Professor Janneke van der Woude. Janneke is a Consultant Gastroenterologist at the Erasmus University Medical Centre in Rotterdam. She is the clinical lead for the IBD unit and has published widely in the field. As a very active ECCO Committee and Executive Board Member since its infancy, we are really excited to get to know Prof Van Der Woude more.

The interview will comprise of a personal introduction, insights into Janneke’s professional life, her ECCO journey, some hot topic discussions and what’s in store for the future. We hope you enjoy listening to this interview by clicking on the audio link below:

Charlotte Hedin © ECCO

Hemel is currently working as a dentist in London. He was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease and within a year of getting his diagnosis he was invited to participate in a trial of an anti-TNF drug. Here he gives his view of his experience of being in a clinical trial.

Serum biomarkers identify patients who will develop inflammatory bowel diseases up to 5 years before diagnosis

Torres J, Petralia F, Sato T, et al.

Gastroenterology 2020;159:96–104.

Introduction

Inflammatory Bowel Disease is a chronic relapsing-remitting, immune-mediated condition with increasing prevalence globally [1]. Despite novel agents targeting different disease pathways, the likelihood of achieving sustained clinical remission and mucosal healing remains low [2]. One of the potential reasons may be that patients seek help and clinicians treat IBD once the disease is in its clinical phase. A sub-clinical phase of variable length may precede the symptoms that lead to a diagnosis and perhaps contribute to tissue damage which, once established, is difficult to reverse with currently available medical treatments.

In this study, Torres and colleagues set out to test the hypothesis that a pre-clinical phase of IBD may well be present and could be identified by proteomic markers [3].

Expression levels of 4 genes in colon tissue might be used to predict which patients will enter endoscopic remission after vedolizumab therapy for Inflammatory Bowel Diseases

Verstockt B, Verstockt S, Veny M, et al.

Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology. 2020;18:1142–51.

Jonathan Digby-Bell © Jonathan Digby-Bell

Introduction

In the past few years the armamentarium of drugs used to treat Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) has accelerated, with the emergence of new therapies targeting differing immune pathways (ustekinumab and tofacitinib) and lymphocyte trafficking (vedolizumab). Furthermore, a number of promising new drugs are on the horizon (JAK-1 inhibitors, IL23p19 antibodies and S1P inhibitors) [1, 2]. However, as the choice of drugs expands, so the uncertainty over which drug should be selected by the clinician also increases. Drug selection may be determined by a number of factors such as cost, mechanism of delivery (e.g. oral, intravenous or subcutaneous), presence of co-morbidities (such as malignancy or multiple sclerosis) and presence of extraintestinal manifestations. However, no drug is effective in all patients, with between 10% and 40% of patients suffering from primary and secondary loss of response [3–5].

Development and validation of a deep neural network for accurate evaluation of endoscopic images from patients with ulcerative colitis

Takenaka K, Ohtsuka K, Fujii T, et al.

Gastroenterology. 2020;158: 2150–7.

Toer Stevens © Toer Stevens

Introduction

Nowadays, IBD treatment not only targets symptomatic disease control but also aims to heal the intestinal mucosa [1] In Ulcerative Colitis (UC) there is mounting evidence that histological healing of the intestinal mucosa is associated with incremental benefit compared to endoscopic healing alone [2–8]. In a very recent meta-analysis of ten studies including 757 UC patients with complete endoscopic remission (Mayo Score 0 or equivalent) and with a minimum follow-up of >12 months,  patients with histological remission had a 63% lower risk of clinical relapse (RR 0.37, 95% CI 0.24–0.56) than patients with ongoing microscopic inflammation [9]. 

Johan Burisch © ECCO

Dear Y-ECCO Friends,

I hope you had a nice UEG Week Virtual earlier in October. My experience with the many virtual symposia over recent months has been mixed, but I think that the virtual UEG Week worked very well, with great interactions from viewers and excellent lectures. Hopefully, we’ll be able to attend the ECCO Congress next year in person – I’m sure that you miss interacting with friends and colleagues as much as I do. But the experience at UEG Week makes me optimistic that this format can also work well.

Francesca Rosini  © ECCO

The histological diagnosis of Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) is not an easy task for a pathologist. In the modern era, personal pathology experience alone is insufficient to make a diagnosis of IBD. The information that a pathologist must know in order to evaluate IBD samples appropriately and to make a diagnosis is diverse, and for the most part should be provided by the gastroenterologists, surgeons or clinicians responsible for the care of patients. Even the most experienced pathologist cannot report a case without knowing the clinical background of the patient. Obviously, this should be the standard for all samples, not only for IBD.