People with inflammatory bowel disease, such as Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, often live with unpleasant and unpredictable symptoms for many years. Periods of relatively stable disease alternate with episodes of active intestinal inflammation. For doctors, it is often difficult to predict how the disease will progress and which treatment will work best for an individual patient.
The PhD research of Sem Geertsema focused on finding new ways to better understand and monitor inflammatory bowel disease. Geertsema investigated whether certain substances in the blood (biomarkers) could provide information about disease activity, future disease progression, and whether a treatment is likely to be effective. Attention was given particularly to changes in the protective function of the intestinal barrier and biological processes that can cause damage to the body's cells (oxidative stress).
The findings show that these processes play an important role in inflammatory bowel disease, even when patients experience few or no symptoms. Changes in certain blood markers were also found to be associated with disease progression and treatment success. Although further research is needed before these findings can be applied in routine clinical practice, they represent an important step towards improved disease monitoring and more personalized treatment for people with inflammatory bowel disease.
Find the full thesis here: Monitoring and prediction in IBD: using biomarkers of gut barrier integrity and oxidative stress
