AUTHOR=Chen Peng , Zhou Gaoshi , Lin Jingxia , Li Li , Zeng Zhirong , Chen Minhu , Zhang Shenghong
TITLE=Serum Biomarkers for Inflammatory Bowel Disease
JOURNAL=Frontiers in Medicine
VOLUME=7
YEAR=2020
URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/medicine/articles/10.3389/fmed.2020.00123
DOI=10.3389/fmed.2020.00123
ISSN=2296-858X
ABSTRACT=Background: Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), including Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, is a chronic, inflammatory disorder of the gastrointestinal tract. As the novel therapeutic goal and biologicals are widely recognized, accurate assessment of disease and prediction of therapeutic response have become a crucial challenge in clinical practice. Also, because of the continuously rising incidence, convenient and economical methods of diagnosis and clinical assessment are urgently needed. Recently, serum biomarkers have made a great progress and become a focus in IBD study because they are non-invasive, convenient, and relatively inexpensive than are markers in biopsy tissue, stool, breath, and other body fluids.
Aims: To review the available data on serological biomarkers for IBD.
Methods: We searched PubMed using predefined key words on relevant literatures of serum biomarkers regarding diagnosis, evaluation of therapeutic efficacy, surveillance of disease activity, and assessment of prognosis for IBD.
Results: We reviewed serological biomarkers that are well-established and widely used (e.g., C-reactive protein), newly discovered biomarkers (e.g., cytokines, antibodies, and non-coding RNAs), and also recently advancements in serological biomarkers (e.g., metabolomics and proteomics) that are used in different aspects of IBD management.
Conclusions: With such a wealth of researches, to date, there are still no ideal serum biomarkers for IBD. Serum profiling and non-coding RNAs are just starting to blossom but reveal great promise for future clinical practice. Combining different biomarkers can be valuable in improving performance of disease evaluation.