Detection and management of early stage inflammatory bowel disease: an update for clinicians

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Inflammatory bowel diseases, which include Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, are lifetime chronic and progressive disorders of poorly known etiology.

Over the past few decades, new therapeutic approaches, including early and more aggressive intervention with immunomodulators and biological agents have offered the possibility of a favorable modification in the natural history of inflammatory bowel diseases.

Area covered: Here, we review the literature about the effectiveness of early detection and intervention in adult inflammatory bowel diseases patients.

Expert commentary: Detecting and managing early stages of inflammatory bowel diseases represents an effective strategy to avoid disease progression in selected patients. Primary care physicians may play a key role in attaining these outcomes by recognizing the signs and symptoms early and making timely referrals. Moreover, early therapeutic intervention with complete disease control may allow dose reduction or even treatment withdrawal in the maintenance phase, reducing side effects, costs, and also improving quality of life.

KEYWORDS:

• Early diagnosis
• early referral
• Crohn’s disease
• Inflammatory Bowel diseases
• ulcerative colitis
• management
• outcomes

Declaration of interest

The authors were supported by… The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

Reviewer disclosures

Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.

Additional information

Funding

This paper was not funded.