Gastroenterology. 2022 Jan 28;S0016-5085(22)00078-6. doi: 10.1053/j.gastro.2022.01.024.Online ahead of print.

Nikolas Plevris ¹, Charlie W Lees ²

Author information

¹The Edinburgh IBD Unit, Western General Hospital, Edinburgh, EH4 2XU, UK; Centre for Genomics and Experimental Medicine, Institute of Genetics and Molecular Medicine, University of Edinburgh, Western General Hospital Campus, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK.

²The Edinburgh IBD Unit, Western General Hospital, Edinburgh, EH4 2XU, UK; Centre for Genomics and Experimental Medicine, Institute of Genetics and Molecular Medicine, University of Edinburgh, Western General Hospital Campus, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK. Electronic address: charlie.lees@ed.ac.uk.

Abstract

Inflammatory bowel disease is a progressive and debilitating condition. Early and effective treatment utilizing a treat to target approach is key in improving patient outcomes. Therefore, proactive monitoring is essential to ensure treatment strategies are working and targets are being met. In this review we discuss the current monitoring tools available to us and how they can be utilized. We also discuss the importance of monitoring during key phases of the disease and propose an optimum treat to target monitoring strategy for Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis. In the advent of new technology, we also discuss how this may improve our monitoring capabilities and how we envisage future monitoring strategies of inflammatory bowel diseases.