Cure8 research brief
This study suggests patients with Crohn’s who reach transmural healing on both endoscopy and imaging have lower long-term surgery and hospitalization rates than those with only endoscopic or radiologic healing or no healing.
That matters because it supports considering deeper healing as an important treatment goal and may affect monitoring strategies.
Adult patients with Crohn’s disease, clinicians managing IBD (gastroenterologists), patients on biologic therapy, and researchers studying treat-to-target strategies.
This study compared long-term outcomes in adults with Crohn’s disease who achieved transmural healing (TH) versus endoscopic healing (EH) alone, radiologic healing (RH) alone, or no healing (NH). Patients had paired ileocolonoscopy and cross-sectional imaging within 6 months and were followed a median of about 6–7 years.
TH was associated with the lowest rates of CD-related surgery and hospitalization; the paper reports markedly lower surgery risk for TH versus NH. The study is observational and from a single cohort of 180 patients; about half were on biologic therapy at baseline and most were on biologics by last follow-up.
The authors recommend standardizing TH definitions and studying treat-to-target strategies that include transmural healing as an endpoint. This appears to be a clinical cohort study reporting associations (not a randomized trial), so TH being linked to better outcomes is persuasive but not proof that targeting TH will necessarily change outcomes.
Results come from an observational cohort; TH was associated with lower surgery risk but causation is not proven. The authors call for standardizing TH definitions and prospective studies to test whether targeting TH improves outcomes.
Review the original publication for the complete reporting, methods, and context.
This Cure8 brief is based on source text from the linked article. Cure8 is informational only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
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