Mechanisms of Intestinal Fibrosis in Crohn's Disease
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Exploring the Mechanisms of Intestinal Fibrosis in Stenotic Phenotypes of Crohn's Disease
IRAS ID
144029
Contact name
Massimo Pinzani
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Joint Research Office
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
20140806, Data Protection Registration Number
Duration of Study in the UK
3 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
Crohn’s disease (CD), a type of inflammatory bowel disease, causes inflammation along the entire digestive tract leading to disabling symptoms such as abdominal pain and bloody diarrhoea. The exact cause is unknown, but there is an abnormal response by the body’s defences – immune system – and it attacks itself. Worldwide it affects anywhere between 5 to 10 people per 100,000 per year.
While there is no cure, modern medications that suppress the immune system have greatly improved patients’ symptoms and reduced the need for surgical removal of diseased bowel by reducing inflammation. However, a proportion of patients will develop areas of narrowing in their bowel – strictures – that cause blockages. Modern medications do not treat strictures and patients often require multiple operations to remove them. Little is known about strictures in CD and why they develop.
Our research will focus on strictures to better understand how and why they develop, with the ultimate goal of proposing different and new treatments. Specifically, we will use strictured areas of bowel that have had to be surgically removed from patients with CD in addition to biopsies taken during endoscopic examination (a test which is part of routine disease evaluation), and samples of their blood to investigate at a microscopic level the mechanisms involved in stricture development. These results will be matched with samples (blood and tissue) obtained from non-Crohn's disease subjects having endoscopic investigation as part of their routine care.REC name
London - Riverside Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
14/LO/1701
Date of REC Opinion
2 Dec 2014
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion