Microbiota in Crohn’s disease
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Studying the effect of enteral diets on the microbiota in children with Crohn's disease.
IRAS ID
158677
Contact name
Protima Amon
Contact email
Duration of Study in the UK
5 years, 0 months, 0 days
Research summary
The aim of this study is to identify changes in the gut bacteria with the use of liquid formula feeds (enteral diets; standard treatment) that induce a healthy intestine in children with Crohn's disease. This type of study requires intestinal biopsies so that the effect of the liquid diet can be studied by looking at the bacteria associated with specific mucosal biopsies.
For over twenty years, enteral diets have successfully brought children with Crohn’s disease into remission. A major advantage of enteral feeds is that they do not suppress growth like corticosteroids. However, their mechanism of action remains unknown. The inside of the intestine teams with trillions of bacteria comprising many species (the microbiota). With the use of new technologies it is now possible to measure the microbiota and understand how they play a central role in the efficacy of these diets.
The bacteria live in the tissue surface and lumen. Recent work shows that tissue surface bacteria are those that distinguish children with Crohn's disease from healthy children (Gevers et al. 2014). Surface bacteria are only detectable by taking a small biopsy with an endoscope. Our study will examine the effects of enteral diets in a cohort of children newly diagnosed with Crohn's disease.
A second group of children who are not newly diagnosed but also have Crohn's disease will be invited to take part in this study as a control group. These children will be treated with an anti-TNF agent for clinical reasons but are not having any dietary modifications. For both groups, mucosal biopsies will be obtained on completion of enteral nutrition or anti-TNF induction course (i.e., after 6-8 weeks) depending on the treatment given.
This study requests ethical approval for the colonoscopy and mucosal biopsies at 6-8 weeks to compare with biopsy specimens in the tissue bank taken earlier.REC name
London - Hampstead Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
15/LO/0054
Date of REC Opinion
26 Jan 2015
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion