The prognostic power of the NOD2 genotype for complicated Crohn's disease: a meta-analysis

Crohn's disease is often purely inflammatory at presentation, but most patients develop strictures and fistulae over time (complicated disease). Many studies have suggested that nucleotide-binding oligomerization domain 2 (NOD2) mutations are associated with a varying but increased risk of complicated disease. An accurate and sufficiently powerful predictor of complicated disease could justify the early use of biological therapy in high-risk individuals. We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis to obtain accurate estimates of the predictive power of the identified mutations (such as p.R702W, P.G908R, and p.Leu1007fsX1008) in NOD2 for the risk of complicated disease.

An electronic search of MEDLINE, Embase, and Web of Science identified 917 relevant papers. Inclusion required specification of genetic mutations at the individual level and disease phenotypes by Vienna classification (inflammatory (B1), stricturing (B2), and fistulizing (B3)). A total of 49 studies met these criteria, which included 8,893 subjects, 2,897 of whom had NOD2 mutations. Studies were weighted by median disease duration. Studies not providing duration data were weighted at the level of the study with the shortest disease duration (3.9 years).

The relative risk (RR) of the presence of any NOD2 mutant allele for complicated disease (B2 or B3) was 1.17 (95% confidence interval (95% CI) 1.10-1.24; P<0.001). P.G908R was associated with an RR of complicated disease of 1.33 (95% CI 1.11-1.60; P=0.002). NOD2 did not predict perianal disease (P=0.4). The RR of surgery was 1.58 (95% CI 1.38-1.80; P<0.001). There was substantial heterogeneity across all studies (I(2)=66.7%). On the basis of logistic regression of these data, the sensitivity of any mutation in predicting complicated disease was 36% and specificity was 73%, with the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve 0.56.

The presence of a single NOD2 mutation predicted an 8% increase in the risk for complicated disease (B2 or B3), and a 41% increase with 2 mutations. Surgery risk is increased by 58% with any NOD2 mutation, whereas perianal disease was unchanged. The predictive power associated with a single NOD2 mutation is weak. The RR of any NOD2 mutations for complicated disease was only 17% across 36 studies. However, the presence of two NOD2 mutations had 98% specificity for complicated disease. These data provide insufficient evidence to support top-down therapy based solely on single NOD2 mutations, but suggest that targeted early-intensive therapy for high-risk patients with two NOD2 mutations might be beneficial, if prospective trials can demonstrate changes in the natural history in this subset of patients.