Increased modified DUBLIN scores are associated with serious ulcerative colitis and treatment failure

Grading of endoscopic lesions is important for determining the severity of ulcerative colitis and developing treatment strategies, but the commonly used methods are not sufficient.

This study aimed to investigate whether new endoscopic scoring systems incorporating lesions and disease extent are associated with clinical disease severity and maintainable remission.

This was a retrospective study. In all, 110 patients with ulcerative colitis were included and 87 completed 12-month follow-up.

Colonoscopy was performed within 1 week before blood samples were taken. Degree of ulcerative colitis burden of luminal inflammation (DUBLIN) scores were calculated as the product of Mayo endoscopic score (MES) by disease extent and ulcerative colitis endoscopic index of severity was used to replace MES when calculating modified DUBLIN scores.

DUBLIN and modified DUBLIN scores were increased in the moderate and severe groups significantly (p < 0.05). Both of increased scores contributed to the detection of serious diseases, and the clinical cutoff values of DUBLIN and modified DUBLIN were 3[area under the curve (AUC) = 0.809, p = 0.001) and 7(AUC = 0.815, p = 0.001), respectively. They were with high sensitivity, but the specificity of DUBLIN was lower. Both scores were correlated to partial Mayo scores, C-reactive protein and erythrocyte sedimentation rate positively, and they were correlated to the albumin negatively (p < 0.05). Higher modified DUBLIN scores (>7) were associated with an increased risk of treatment failure (hazard ratio = 4.96, 95% confidence interval: 1.17-21.00, p = 0.03), but there were no association between DUBLIN scores and long-term remission (p > 0.05).

Increased DUBLIN and modified DUBLIN scores were conducive to screening serious disease, but only modified DUBLIN scores had the potential to assist in making an upgraded therapeutic schedule.