While the ECCO Basic Imaging Workshop in collaboration with ESGAR had to be postponed until next year’s ECCO Congress due to the need to change to a virtual format at rather short notice, the 9th ECCO Ultrasound Workshop – Advanced in collaboration with ESGAR did take place and proved a big success, bringing together 114 colleagues from 34 countries, including not just European countries but also, for example, the United States, Uruguay, Singapore, Japan, Korea, India and Australia.
The Epidemiological Committee (EpiCom) organised the 6th EpiCom Workshop at the ECCO’22 Virtual Congress. The delegates were welcomed by EpiCom chair, Naila Arebi.
The opening presentation was a tandem talk by Naila Arebi and Valérie Pittet on core outcomes relevant to prognostic factors. The two different types of prognostic study, natural history and clinical course, were described, with identification of their strengths and weaknesses. Emphasis was placed on the importance of these studies in paving the way for personalised medicine by identifying high-risk groups and tailoring treatment accordingly. However, a significant limitation is the heterogeneity of outcomes, which limits comparison. Indeed, over 200 different outcomes have been described for Crohn’s Disease (CD) alone.
ClinCom Workshops are aimed at clinicians, surgeons and paediatricians and aim to provide an update on the latest clinical research trends in IBD. This year’s 8th ClinCom Workshop focused on two clinically relevant and practical topics.
The ECCO Congress offers an ideal opportunity to learn, share and interact. This was also the main purpose of the 6th Basic ECCO: EduCational COurse for Industry, held on Wednesday, February 16, 2022. The course aimed to provide corporate and non-corporate members who have recently entered the field of IBD with an introduction to IBD, focussing on the clinical essentials and ‘need-to-knows’. Despite the obvious challenges relating to the format and the pandemic, 34 registrants attended the course.
This year we celebrated the 10th edition of the SciCom Workshop. What better way to do this than by looking ahead at future therapeutic IBD targets?
To set the scene, Marc Ferrante took us through the limitations of current IBD therapies, including the therapeutic ceiling, lack of information on niche indications (e.g. anal fistula, pouchitis), drugs that become available despite many remaining questions, and safety and economic aspects. However, there is a bright future ahead, with many opportunities to explore, such as the need for novel drugs with better efficacy, thinking beyond anti-inflammatory drugs, head-to-head trials, using drugs more efficiently, considering other aetiological factors, precision medicine and more.
One of the main goals of ECCO is to promote IBD-related basic and clinical research as well as to foster interaction and productive collaboration among European research groups working in the IBD field. To achieve this goal, ECCO supports numerous funding schemes with different scopes including ECCO Fellowships, Grants, and Travel Awards.
ECCO has established Fellowships, Grants and Travel Awards to encourage and support young physicians in their careers and to promote innovative research in IBD.
Johan Burisch is a gastroenterologist in training who is currently working in Copenhagen, Denmark. His research focusses on IBD epidemiology. He works with both population-based cohorts of patients and the Danish national patient registries. Furthermore, he is involved in developing eHealth solutions for self-monitoring in IBD. He has authored over 100 peer-reviewed papers on IBD epidemiology as well as several book chapters. In 2019, he was awarded the UEG Rising Star award. He has been Y-ECCO Chair since 2020.
The anti-tumour necrosis factor monoclonal antibody infliximab is one of the most widely used therapies for corticosteroid-refractory Ulcerative Colitis (UC). Long-term use of infliximab is associated with an increased risk of adverse events such as malignancies and infections, which is particularly concerning for those on concurrent immunosuppressive medications such as corticosteroids, thiopurines or calcineurin inhibitors [1–3]. With the number of patients with UC on long-term infliximab therapy continuing to rise, an important clinical question to address is whether these patients remain in remission upon discontinuing infliximab. Prospective studies have evaluated discontinuation of infliximab in patients with Crohn’s Disease, with deep (i.e. clinical, biological and endoscopic) remission thought to have a lower risk of relapse, but the evidence for patients with UC is limited to retrospective studies [4–6]. The HAYABUSA study aimed to address this issue with a randomised controlled trial (RCT) to evaluate discontinuing infliximab in patients with UC in remission.
Approximately 25% of patients with Ulcerative Colitis (UC) require admission to hospital for acute severe (ASUC) or refractory disease, with one-third suffering from multiple episodes [1]. The mainstay of initial anti-inflammatory treatment remains corticosteroids, following the seminal report from Truelove and Witts in the BMJ in 1955 [2, 3]. Here, 210 patients were randomised to standard care with oral cortisone or placebo. Significant benefit was demonstrated in the cortisone group, particularly in those at index presentation and those who had mild UC. At follow-up to 2 years, 21.5% had undergone surgery.
It is interesting that acute colectomy rates remain approximately 20% despite improvements in overall care and infliximab or ciclosporin ‘rescue’ therapy [1, 3]. The CONSTRUCT trial, reported in 2016, demonstrated no significant difference in the frequency of colectomy between these rescue medications, with surgery required in roughly 40% of steroid-refractory patients within one year.
Ravi Misra
Isabelle Cleynen 
Charlotte Hedin 
