An Improved Score for the Evaluation of Mucosal Healing in Inflammatory Bowel Disease-A Pilot Study

Inflammatory bowel diseases are chronic conditions characterized by periods of remission, alternating with episodes of exacerbation, in which the primary therapeutic target is mucosal healing. Although colonoscopy is currently considered the gold standard for assessing disease activity, it presents a significant number of disadvantages. Over time, various inflammatory biomarkers have been proposed to detect disease activation, but current biomarkers have many limitations. Our study aimed to analyze the most commonly used biomarkers for patient monitoring and follow-up both independently and taken together as a group, in order to propose an improved activity score that more accurately reflects the changes occurring at the intestinal level, in order to limit the number of colonoscopic interventions. By applying logistic regression as a method of statistical analysis to the retrospectively collected data, we obtained an easy-to-calculate improved score that quantifies the chance that a given patient may be in remission or in a period of endoscopic activity. To achieve a widely accessible score that is easily accessible in clinical practice, we have included only the most commonly used clinical and biological parameters.