Your blood could reveal inflammatory bowel disease 10 years before diagnosis

What To Know

This report summarizes findings presented at UEG Week 2026 showing that serum antibody profiling across hundreds of thousands of antigens revealed distinct immune signatures years before diagnosis.

The study sampled people who later developed Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis and matched controls, and used machine-learning models to classify future disease (reported AUCs ~0.90 for Crohn’s and ~0.84 for UC).

The antibody patterns included higher responses to herpesviruses and bacterial flagellin in future Crohn’s cases, and rising responses to herpesviruses and autoantigens in future UC cases, plus declining responses to some encapsulated bacteria as diagnosis approached.

These results are preliminary and were presented at a conference rather than as a peer-reviewed journal article; they suggest potential for blood-based biomarkers but do not yet establish clinical tests or change care.