Clinical significance of a novel uric-acid-based biomarker in the prediction of disease activity and response to infliximab therapy in Crohn’s disease

Abstract

Objectives

Crohn’s disease (CD) is an inflammatory bowel disease marked by a chronic remission-relapse cycle. Biomarkers are critical to reflect the bowel wall inflammation and detect the treatment response. Here, we investigated a new index—the ratio of neutrophil to uric acid (NUR)—as a predictor of CD activity and responses to infliximab (IFX) treatment.

Methods

Clinical and laboratory data were retrieved for CD patients and healthy control subjects from an electronic medical records database. Disease and endoscopic activity were determined using the Crohn’s Disease Activity Index (CDAI) and Simple Endoscopic Score for Crohn’s Disease (SES-CD), respectively.

Results

We found firstly that NUR was remarkably higher in CD patients (n = 162) than controls (n = 170) (0.27 ± 0.10 vs. 0.19 ± 0.04, p < .0001). NUR was positively correlated with disease activity and prior to treatment, it was lower in CD patients who responded to IFX than in those who did not (0.25 ± 0.07 vs. 0.38 ± 0.12, p = .0019). Pre-treatment NUR was effective in predicting the patients’ responses to IFX (AUC = 0.8469, p = .0034).

Conclusion

The results of this study support the utility of NUR for detecting CD activity and predicting the response to IFX treatment.

Keywords:

• Crohn’s disease
• inflammatory bowel disease
• biomarker
• uric acid
• neutrophil
• infliximab

Author contributions

Yinghui Zhang and Yan Zhang designed and supervised the study; Yan Pan, Xijing Huang and Zhou Zhou collected the enrolled subjects’ clinical information; Xue Yang, Liangping Li and Caiping Gao diagnosed the patients; Xijing Huang performed the data analysis; Yan Pan wrote the original draft; Yan Pan, Xijing Huang and Yan Zhang revised the manuscript. All authors discussed, revised, and approved the final version of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable requests.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the Foundation of Health Commission of Sichuan Province [19PJ131].