Cure8 research brief
If validated, an imaging-derived adipose heterogeneity biomarker could help predict who will lose response to infliximab after induction, potentially guiding earlier treatment decisions and personalized monitoring for people with Crohn’s disease.
Adults with Crohn’s disease on or starting infliximab; gastroenterologists and IBD clinicians; researchers in imaging biomarkers and microbiome interactions.
This preprint reports a single-center retrospective study that used CT enterography images to create a visceral adipose tissue heterogeneity score (VHS) and measured the percent change in VHS after infliximab induction (%ΔVHS).
Lower %ΔVHS after induction was associated with higher odds of secondary loss of response to infliximab in 158 patients, and a combined model including %ΔVHS showed good discrimination in internal testing.
The study also includes exploratory prospective microbiome profiling and descriptive humanized fecal microbiota transplantation experiments suggesting a link between visceral adipose changes and the gut microbiome, but these are presented as exploratory.
The authors conclude that longitudinal imaging heterogeneity could be a candidate digital biomarker to stratify post-induction risk, but they state the findings require external validation and prospective evaluation before clinical use.
Single-center, abstract-level preprint findings; exploratory microbiome and FMT data are hypothesis-generating. External validation and prospective studies are needed before clinical use.
Review the original publication for the complete reporting, methods, and context.
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