The number of patients living with Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis (the two main types of inflammatory bowel disease) is rising, in the UK and around the world. Treatment has changed a lot in the last 20 years. Several new medications have been developed to treat both Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. Many of these are injectable medicines but new tablets have also been developed. These are often referred to as ‘advanced therapies’. All of these new medications have been carefully tested in clinical research to show they work.
However, in real life, we know that some treatments help certain people but not everyone. We want to understand what causes some treatments to be more or less effective for an individual patient. By studying this, we hope to be able to predict which medication is most likely to work for an individual patient. The idea that we might be able to select the most effective medication for an individual patient when they need it most is often referred to as ‘precision medicine’.
How are we going to achieve this?
It is likely that differences in treatment effectiveness are the result of lots of different factors. Among these, we think that gut microorganisms (bacteria, viruses and fungi) may play an important role. An individual’s genes, their immune system and lifestyle factors (for example, the foods we eat) are likely to be important too.To carry out this research, we will recruit 1325 patients with active inflammatory bowel disease (causing symptoms) from hospitals across the UK. Specifically, we will recruit patients who are about to start one of several advanced therapies already approved to treat Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis.
Watch our study summary video below
The IBD-RESPONSE study is taking place at the following hospitals across the UK.
If you have an upcoming IBD appointment to discuss a change in your treatment and are interested in joining the IBD-RESPONSE study, please contact your gastroenterologist or IBD nurse for more information. Please note that the study is only recruiting patients who are starting or changing treatment due to symptoms such as diarrhoea, abdominal pain and/or bleeding with bowel movements
Sites open to recruitment:
Barts (Barts Health NHS Trust)Bath (Royal United Hospitals Bath NHS foundation Trust)
Berkshire (Royal Berkshire Foundation Trust)Birmingham (University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust)
Cambridge (Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust)Cardiff (Cardiff and Vale University Health Board)
County Durham and Darlington (County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust)
Coventry (University Hospitals Coventry & Warwickshire NHS Trust)
Dundee (Tayside Health Board)East Cheshire (East Cheshire NHS Trust)
Edinburgh (NHS Lothian)
East and North Herts (East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust)Glasgow (NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde)
Guy’s and St Thomas’ (Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust)
Hull (Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust)
Imperial College London (Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust)
King’s College Hospital (King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust)
Kettering (Kettering General Hospital NHS Foundation Trust)
Leeds (Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust)Liverpool (Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust)
Manchester (Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust)
Newcastle (The Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust)
Norfolk and Norwich (Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust)
Northumbria (Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust)
Oxford (Oxford University hospitals NHS Foundation Trust)
Pennine (Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust)
Royal Devon and Exeter (Royal Devon University Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust)
Royal Free (Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust)
St Marks and Ealing (London Northwest Healthcare NHS Trust)
Somerset (Somerset NHS Foundation Trust)South Tees (South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust)
St George’s (St George’s University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust)
Shrewsbury (The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust)
Sussex (university Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust)
Swansea (Swansea Bay University health Board)
Torbay (Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust)
University College London (University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust)
Southampton (University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust)
Wolverhampton (The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust)
Hear IBD-RESPONSE participant Claudia talk about why she decided to join the IBD-RESPONSE study and her experience of taking part.
IBD-RESPONSE is the largest study of its kind in the world.
So far, 1032 people have joined the study, providing a total of 2596 samples and completing 14606 questionnaires.
Every sample and questionnaire collected makes a difference.
If you are already taking part in IBD-RESPONSE (or CD-metaRESPONSE) please remember to send in your stool samples and complete your questionnaires at the required time points. Your contribution to the study is crucial to ensure the success of this groundbreaking research.
If you’d like to know what we have already discovered, take a look at our ‘What we’ve found so far’ section to read about our latest findings and publications from the project.
Click here to find out more about our published work
