The cost of inflammatory bowel disease in high-income settings: a Lancet Gastroenterology & Hepatology Commission.

The cost of caring for patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) continues to increase worldwide. The cause is not only a steady increase in the prevalence of Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis in both developed and newly industrialised countries, but also the chronic nature of the diseases, the need for long-term, often expensive treatments, the use of more intensive disease monitoring strategies, and the effect of the diseases on economic productivity. This Commission draws together a wide range of expertise to discuss the current costs of IBD care, the drivers of increasing costs, and how to deliver affordable care for IBD in the future. The key conclusions are that (1) increases in health-care costs must be evaluated against improved disease management and reductions in indirect costs, and (2) that overarching systems for data interoperability, registries, and big data approaches must be established for continuous assessment of effectiveness, costs, and the cost-effectiveness of care. International collaborations should be sought out to evaluate novel models of care (eg, value-based health care, including integrated health care, and participatory health-care models), as well as to improve the education and training of clinicians, patients, and policy makers.

Switching from intravenous to subcutaneous vedolizumab maintenance treatment in patients with inflammatory bowel disease followed by therapeutic drug monitoring.

OBJECTIVE: Vedolizumab (VDZ) for subcutaneous (SC) administration has recently become available. We aimed to assess feasibility, safety and clinical outcome when switching from intravenous (IV) to SC VDZ maintenance treatment in a real world cohort of patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) followed by therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM). METHODS: Eligible IBD patients were switched from IV to SC treatment and assessed six months prior to switch, at baseline and six, twelve and twenty-six weeks after switch. Primary outcome was proportion of patients on SC treatment after 26 weeks. Secondary outcomes included adverse events (AEs), clinical disease activity, biochemical markers, treatment interval, serum-VDZ (s-VDZ), preferred route of administration and health-related quality of life. RESULTS: In total, 108 patients were switched. After 26 weeks, 100 patients (92.6%) were still on SC treatment and median s-VDZ was 47.6 mg/L (IQR 41.3 - 54.6). The most frequent AE was injection site reaction (ISR), reported by 20 patients (18.5%). There were no clinically significant changes in disease activity, biochemical markers and quality of life. The proportion of patients preferring SC administration increased from 28.0% before switch to 59.4% after 26 weeks (p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Nine out of ten patients still received SC treatment after 26 weeks. No change in disease activity occurred, and levels of serum VDZ increased. Although almost one fifth of patients experienced ISRs, a higher proportion favored SC administration at 26 weeks. This study demonstrates that SC maintenance treatment is a safe and feasible alternative to IV treatment.

Complementary and alternative medicine in patients with inflammatory bowel disease: the results of a population-based inception cohort study (IBSEN).

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: The use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) has been increasing in recent decades. Our aim was to determine the proportion of CAM use among patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) in a longitudinal, population-based cohort and to identify predictive factors for CAM use. METHODS: The Inflammatory Bowel South-Eastern Norway (IBSEN) study is a population-based IBD cohort that has been followed prospectively for 10 years. The ten-year follow-up was conducted from 2000 to 2004 and included a questionnaire regarding CAM, a structured interview, a review of hospital records, a clinical examination, laboratory tests, and an ileocolonoscopy. RESULTS: Of the 620 patients evaluated at the ten-year follow-up, 517 (84%) completed the CAM questionnaire, 353 had ulcerative colitis (UC), 164 had Crohn's disease (CD), and 50% were male. Thirty percent reported the use of CAM at some point since their IBD diagnosis, and 7.5% reported current CAM use. More CD patients than UC patients reported CAM use (38% vs. 27%, respectively; p=0.01). Younger age, female gender, and higher education level predicted CAM use in UC, whereas younger age was the only predictor of CAM use in CD. Thirty-six percent of the CAM users were mostly satisfied or very satisfied with the treatment. CONCLUSION: One third of the patients in this population-based cohort had used CAM at some point during a ten-year disease course, but only 7.5% reported current CAM use. CAM use was more common in the CD than in the UC patients. Only socio-demographic factors, such as age, gender and education, predicted CAM use.