Fai Fai Ho, Yin-Yan Gao, Yuting Chen, Betty Huan Wang, Justin Che Yuen Wu, Hong Zheng, Yin Ting Cheung, Chun Sing Lam, Maggie Haitian Wang, Irene Xin-Yin Wu, Chen Mao, Vincent Chi Ho Chung
{"title":"Association of Healthy Lifestyle Behaviours With Incident Inflammatory Bowel Disease: A Population-Based Prospective Cohort Study","authors":"Fai Fai Ho, Yin-Yan Gao, Yuting Chen, Betty Huan Wang, Justin Che Yuen Wu, Hong Zheng, Yin Ting Cheung, Chun Sing Lam, Maggie Haitian Wang, Irene Xin-Yin Wu, Chen Mao, Vincent Chi Ho Chung","doi":"10.1111/apt.70031","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/apt.70031","url":null,"abstract":"The combined effects of some modifiable lifestyle factors on incident inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) are uncertain.","PeriodicalId":121,"journal":{"name":"Alimentary Pharmacology & Therapeutics","volume":"12 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":7.6,"publicationDate":"2025-02-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143427340","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Post-TIPS Overt Hepatic Encephalopathy Increases Long-Term but Not Short-Term Mortality in Cirrhotic Patients With Variceal Bleeding: A Large-Scale, Multicenter Real-World Study","authors":"Yi Xiang, Jun Tie, Guangchuan Wang, Yuzheng Zhuge, Hao Wu, Xiaoli Zhu, Hui Xue, Shanghao Liu, Ling Yang, Jiao Xu, Feng Zhang, Mingyan Zhang, Bo Wei, Peijie Li, Ze Wang, Wei Wu, Chao Chen, Shifeng Yang, Yicheng Han, Chengwei Tang, Xiaolong Qi, Chunqing Zhang","doi":"10.1111/apt.18509","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/apt.18509","url":null,"abstract":"Transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunt (TIPS) is an established procedure for managing portal hypertension in cirrhotic patients, but the impact of post-TIPS overt hepatic encephalopathy (OHE) on survival remains controversial. While its effect on short-term survival is well-documented, its long-term implications remain unclear.","PeriodicalId":121,"journal":{"name":"Alimentary Pharmacology & Therapeutics","volume":"23 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":7.6,"publicationDate":"2025-02-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143435658","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Editorial: Right-Sizing Colonoscopy Referrals for Patients With Possible Signs and Symptoms of Colorectal Cancer","authors":"Nicole P. Mirabadi, Samir Gupta","doi":"10.1111/apt.70003","DOIUrl":"10.1111/apt.70003","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Colorectal cancer (CRC) mortality reduction strategies may include primary prevention through risk reduction, early detection and prevention through screening, and timely diagnosis among individuals with potential signs and symptoms of CRC [<span>1</span>]. Although lower gastrointestinal symptoms are common among patients with CRC, they have poor positive predictive values of 0.2%–0.6% [<span>2, 3</span>]. Thus, identification of individuals at high risk for CRC based on signs/symptoms alone is a challenge.</p><p>As an adjunct to symptoms, the faecal immunochemical test (FIT) can correctly rule out CRC in 75%–80% of symptomatic patients at a faecal haemoglobin (f-Hb) cut-off of 10 μg Hb/g faeces, although specificity may be as low as 48.7% [<span>4</span>]. In settings with constrained colonoscopy resources, and among populations with low CRC prevalence (such as younger age adults), suboptimal specificity has significant implications for health system and patient burdens.</p><p>Prediction models combining FIT, patient characteristics and other tests may better optimise CRC risk stratification. However, a prior review has suggested that previous studies require extension with better methodologic rigour, including use of model derivation and validation datasets [<span>5</span>].</p><p>To address this evidence gap, Crooks et al. developed and validated a prediction model to estimate the 1-year risk of CRC for symptomatic patients by combining f-Hb, age, sex and blood cell indices—specifically platelet count and mean corpuscular volume (the COLOFIT model) [<span>6</span>]. A cohort of 34,435 adults age ≥ 18 referred between November 2017 and November 2021 with potential CRC symptoms and exposure to FIT was used to derive a prediction model for CRC diagnosis (the primary outcome), with CRC ascertained based on cancer registry data within 1 year of follow-up. Validation was performed with a December 2021–November 2022 cohort of 21,012. A net-benefit analysis compared trade-offs between CRC detection and colonoscopies generated based on COLOFIT versus a referral threshold of f-Hb ≥ 10 μg Hb/g faeces in isolation.</p><p>At a similar 0.6% CRC risk referral threshold as f-Hb ≥ 10 μg alone, COLOFIT had CRC sensitivities of 91.6% and 92.3%, and specificities of 79.7% and 82.2% for the derivation and validation datasets, respectively. At these referral thresholds, net-benefit analysis suggested a minimal 9 per 100,000 reduction in CRC case detection with a substantial 18% reduction in colonoscopies required for COLOFIT versus only FIT, confirming the COLOFIT model could achieve similar population benefits but with lower draw on colonoscopy resources.</p><p>Limitations include use of only registry—rather than colonoscopy—follow-up for CRC diagnosis, and potential for patients with measured blood count results to have had more severe symptoms and higher CRC risk than those without, potentially resulting in respective risks for spectrum bias and incorporatio","PeriodicalId":121,"journal":{"name":"Alimentary Pharmacology & Therapeutics","volume":"61 6","pages":"1075-1076"},"PeriodicalIF":6.6,"publicationDate":"2025-02-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/apt.70003","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143434919","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Editorial: Variceal Bleeding in Patients Receiving Atezolizumab-Bevacizumab for Hepatocellular Carcinoma: Don't Ignore the Risk Factors!","authors":"Shirin Salimi, Ken Liu","doi":"10.1111/apt.70017","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/apt.70017","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The introduction of immunotherapy has changed the treatment paradigm for unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) [<span>1</span>]. The landmark IMbrave150 trial demonstrated improved overall survival with atezolizumab-bevacizumab against sorafenib for unresectable HCC [<span>2</span>]. All patients underwent gastroscopy within 6 months prior to trial initiation and those with high-risk varices were excluded. Despite this, acute variceal bleeding (AVB) still occurred which was thought to be due to the vasoactive effects of bevacizumab [<span>3</span>]. This has sparked an unprecedented interest in the prediction and prevention of AVB in patients with advanced HCC. In the last 5 years, there have been over 20 real-world studies and two systematic reviews with meta-analyses investigating this topic. The overall incidence of AVB appears to be 4% with risk factors of portal vein tumour thrombus (PVTT), previous variceal bleeding and presence of pre-treatment varices reported by some but not all studies [<span>4, 5</span>].</p>\u0000<p>Park et al. present the largest cohort of patients receiving atezolizumab-bevacizumab for HCC to date [<span>6</span>]. The authors retrospectively studied 640 patients (70% chronic hepatitis B, 50% PVTT) across two tertiary centres in Korea and observed AVB in 7% over a relatively short follow-up period. All patients underwent gastroscopy within 12 months of starting atezolizumab-bevacizumab (75% within 6 months). Like in other studies, baseline gastroscopy within 6 months of systemic therapy (as per IMbrave150 protocol) was not universal which highlights difficulties in scheduling procedures and pressure to promptly initiate therapy in the real-world setting. The study reconfirmed independent risk factors for AVB including varices needing treatment (VNT) on pretreatment gastroscopy, low platelet count, PVTT and previous gastrointestinal bleeding. As VNT may not be reliably predicted by non-invasive measures [<span>7, 8</span>], pretreatment gastroscopy appears to be crucial to properly risk stratify patients. Conversely, lack of varices on pretreatment gastroscopy did not guard against future AVB in the presence of other risk factors (especially PVTT) in this study.</p>\u0000<p>Interestingly, patients who received varices prophylaxis with endoscopic band ligation and/or non-selective beta-blockers were more likely to have AVB compared with those who did not (22% vs. 3%). This finding should be interpreted with caution as a selection bias exists since those who received prophylaxis exhibited more risk factors for AVB in this study. The same caution applies to recent meta-analyses which found no reduction in rates of AVB regardless of prior prophylaxis [<span>4</span>]. Nonetheless, the high rates of AVB despite prophylaxis in patients with additional risk factors suggest that on-treatment repeat gastroscopy (and band ligation) is required in some.</p>\u0000<p>Five years on from IMbrave150, we still lack consensus on AVB prevent","PeriodicalId":121,"journal":{"name":"Alimentary Pharmacology & Therapeutics","volume":"64 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":7.6,"publicationDate":"2025-02-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143427373","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Letter on ‘Head-To-Head Comparison Between Phosphatidylethanol Versus Indirect Alcohol Biomarkers for Diagnosis of MetALD Versus MASLD: A Prospective Study’ Authors' Reply","authors":"Federica Tavaglione, Rohit Loomba","doi":"10.1111/apt.70018","DOIUrl":"10.1111/apt.70018","url":null,"abstract":"<p>We thank Abubakr and colleagues [<span>1</span>] for their supportive comments on our recently published work, where we show that phosphatidylethanol (PEth) is a precise, quantitative, objective alcohol biomarker for differentiating metabolic dysfunction and alcohol-related liver disease (MetALD) from metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD). Notably, PEth exhibited robust diagnostic accuracy, with an AUROC of 0.81 (95% CI 0.73–0.89) and an optimal cut-off value of 25 ng/mL, outperforming traditional alcohol biomarkers [<span>2</span>]. The study population included over 300 community-dwelling individuals with overweight or obesity and steatotic liver disease (SLD) assessed through advanced magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques, namely MRI-PDFF and MRE, from the greater San Diego area [<span>3</span>].</p><p>PEth is a direct alcohol biomarker that forms exclusively in the presence of ethanol, resulting in high sensitivity and specificity with minimal false positives [<span>4</span>]. As we previously discussed [<span>5</span>], the dynamics of PEth formation and degradation at the level of human erythrocyte membrane lead one to consider that conditions such as anaemia, advanced stages of liver disease and drinking patterns may influence PEth levels. However, limited studies have specifically examined the impact of these conditions on PEth variability. Additional research is required to investigate the performance of PEth, as well as the underlying mechanisms governing its formation and degradation across different stages of SLD and drinking patterns.</p><p>Similarly, since body mass index (BMI) is inversely correlated with blood alcohol concentration [<span>6</span>], it is reasonable to speculate that obesity may affect PEth levels. However, due to the paucity of studies specifically exploring the diagnostic accuracy of PEth in individuals with both excessive alcohol use and underlying metabolic dysfunction (i.e., MetALD), further studies are needed to fully address this question.</p><p>In conclusion, our study paves the way for a new and unexplored research field aimed at investigating the role of direct alcohol biomarkers, such as PEth, alongside self-reported alcohol use in the context of SLD. Further exploration is necessary to better understand their diagnostic accuracy and utility in clinical practice.</p><p>The authors' declarations of personal and financial interests are unchanged from those in the original article [<span>2</span>].</p><p><b>Federica Tavaglione:</b> writing – review and editing, writing – original draft. <b>Rohit Loomba:</b> writing – original draft, writing – review and editing.</p><p>This article is linked to Tavaglione et al papers. To view these articles, visit https://doi.org/10.1111/apt.18506 and https://doi.org/10.1111/apt.70008.</p>","PeriodicalId":121,"journal":{"name":"Alimentary Pharmacology & Therapeutics","volume":"61 6","pages":"1084-1085"},"PeriodicalIF":6.6,"publicationDate":"2025-02-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/apt.70018","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143427371","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Erin R. Bonner, Werner Tschollar, Robert Anderson, Sulayman Mourabit
{"title":"Review Article: Novel Enzyme Therapy Design for Gluten Peptide Digestion Through Exopeptidase Supplementation","authors":"Erin R. Bonner, Werner Tschollar, Robert Anderson, Sulayman Mourabit","doi":"10.1111/apt.70014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/apt.70014","url":null,"abstract":"Dietary peptides are increasingly linked to inflammatory gastrointestinal diseases, exemplified by coeliac disease. Coeliac disease is caused by an acquired immune response to proline- and glutamine-rich gluten peptides, which bottleneck proteolysis and provide substrates for immune recognition. Enzyme therapies aim to eliminate gluten immunogenic peptides as an adjunct to gluten-free diet.","PeriodicalId":121,"journal":{"name":"Alimentary Pharmacology & Therapeutics","volume":"208 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":7.6,"publicationDate":"2025-02-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143418435","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Soon Sun Kim, Jonghyun Lee, Sang Bong Ahn, Young Eun Chon, Eileen Yoon, Soung Won Jeong, Dae Won Jun
{"title":"Clinical Course and Prognosis of Long-Term Survivors of Hepatocellular Carcinoma","authors":"Soon Sun Kim, Jonghyun Lee, Sang Bong Ahn, Young Eun Chon, Eileen Yoon, Soung Won Jeong, Dae Won Jun","doi":"10.1111/apt.70004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/apt.70004","url":null,"abstract":"This study investigated the long-term prognosis and clinical course of patients who survived for more than 5 years after hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) diagnosis.","PeriodicalId":121,"journal":{"name":"Alimentary Pharmacology & Therapeutics","volume":"17 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":7.6,"publicationDate":"2025-02-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143417456","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Letter: The Hidden Truth of IBD Risk—From Antibiotics to Environmental Factors","authors":"Xueneng Yang, Ruijuan Li","doi":"10.1111/apt.18517","DOIUrl":"10.1111/apt.18517","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Editors,</p><p>Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) has shown a significant rise in global incidence over the past few decades, with particularly rapid increase in children and adolescents [<span>1, 2</span>]. Early-life antibiotic use has profound effects on the gut microbiome and immune system, linking it to an elevated risk of IBD [<span>1, 3</span>]. Despite growing research, the specific impacts of different antibiotic types, doses and timing on IBD risk remain unclear. Furthermore, the interplay between environmental factors and the gut microbiota requires further investigation. Bridging these knowledge gaps is crucial for alleviating the growing burden of IBD among children and adolescents.</p><p>We commend Dr. Mårild et al. [<span>4</span>] for their work in investigating the relationship between early-life infections, antibiotic use and the risk of IBD in children and adolescents. They demonstrated that early-life antibiotic use, particularly of penicillin, was significantly associated with an increased risk of IBD (adjusted hazard ratio: 1.33), while infection frequency at ages 0–1 and 1–3 years showed no significant association. This provides critical evidence for understanding the long-term effects of antibiotics on the gut microbiome and immune system. However, some limitations in the study warrant further exploration.</p><p>First, the study relied solely on usage frequency without analysing antibiotic dosage and duration, which limits the understanding of their impact on gut microbiome disruption. Second, environmental factors such as sanitation, dietary patterns and air pollution were not included, despite their potential relevance to IBD through their effects on the gut microbiome and immune system [<span>5, 6</span>]. Lastly, the study did not explicitly exclude children with underlying health conditions, potentially confounding the causal relationship between antibiotic use and IBD risk [<span>7, 8</span>].</p><p>To address these limitations, future studies should include analyses of antibiotic dosage and duration to evaluate their effects on the gut microbiome and IBD risk. Additionally, environmental factors should be integrated into study models to quantify their interactions with antibiotic use and IBD development. Rigorous screening of children with underlying health conditions is essential, with subgroup analyses or multivariable adjustments used to control for potential confounders. Multi-omics approaches might be employed to dynamically analyse the impact of antibiotics on the microbiome and immune system, uncovering causal links between microbial imbalance and IBD onset.</p><p><b>Xueneng Yang:</b> writing – original draft, writing – review and editing, conceptualization. <b>Ruijuan Li:</b> writing – original draft, writing – review and editing, conceptualization.</p><p>The authors have nothing to report.</p><p>The authors declare no conflicts of interest.</p><p>This article is linked to Mårild et al paper. To view this a","PeriodicalId":121,"journal":{"name":"Alimentary Pharmacology & Therapeutics","volume":"61 6","pages":"1090-1091"},"PeriodicalIF":6.6,"publicationDate":"2025-02-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/apt.18517","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143417459","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Editorial: Endoscopic Activity is an Essential Tool for Patients' Management, Even in Mild Crohn's Disease","authors":"Marco Mendolaro, Marco Daperno","doi":"10.1111/apt.70015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/apt.70015","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Endoscopic activity is one of the most relevant prognostic markers in Crohn's disease: worse endoscopic features and more severe endoscopic activity are associated with poorer outcomes, while healing of lesions is associated with more favourable outcomes [<span>1, 2</span>]. While most available evidence on the prognostic role of endoscopic activity is based on data from moderately to severely active Crohn's disease [<span>3</span>], a large proportion of patients report clinical remission or very mild disease activity during their lifespan [<span>4</span>].</p>\u0000<p>Peraza and colleagues have reported their multicentre retrospective study on the prognostic role of endoscopic severity focusing on individuals with mild Crohn's disease of long duration [<span>5</span>]. The authors recruited 177 surgery-naïve patients with Crohn's disease, with a predominantly uncomplicated disease course; only 1 in 4 patients had previously undergone immunosuppressive treatment and only 1 in 10 had been treated with biologics. Perianal disease was present in only 1 in 10 patients and, despite a long disease duration (median 17 years; range 0–55), individuals had a remarkably low endoscopic disease activity score (2 out of 3 patients had a SES-CD score between 0 and 3 points). The authors reported a significantly elevated hazards ratio (HR) of 2.5 for patients with higher endoscopic activity (SES-CD ≥ 7), demonstrating that endoscopic activity affects Crohn's disease outcomes even in those with mild disease phenotypes.</p>\u0000<p>There are some points to consider in interpreting the results. First, although most patients presented with mild clinical disease, those with a more severe endoscopic activity may have been treated more aggressively based on endoscopic findings, leading to an overestimation of the prognostic negative effects of such features. Second, endoscopic severity was graded prospectively in each institution, but only local scores recorded at the time of endoscopy were considered, and no image or video re-assessment was undertaken. As local readers tend to overestimate endoscopic scores [<span>6</span>], this could have biased the results. However, the authors reported a sensitivity analysis showing that even considering a ±1 point cut-off value (i.e., considering SES-CD of 6 or 8 and higher), HRs were not substantially different. Finally, the generalisability of the results may be limited by the specifics of the study population: it is unclear if the results can be extrapolated to newly diagnosed patients or those exposed to more advanced therapies.</p>\u0000<p>It remains clear that it is difficult to define mild Crohn's disease effectively. Clinical features must be integrated with biomarkers (e.g., C-reactive protein and faecal calprotectin), but also with multidimensional non-invasive disease severity or disability indices like the Disease Severity Index [<span>7</span>] or the IBD Disk [<span>8</span>], eventually integrated with other patient-reported ","PeriodicalId":121,"journal":{"name":"Alimentary Pharmacology & Therapeutics","volume":"80 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":7.6,"publicationDate":"2025-02-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143418437","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Editorial: Examining Perianal Fistulising Crohn's Disease Through the Lens of Wound Repair","authors":"Tim Eglinton","doi":"10.1111/apt.70001","DOIUrl":"10.1111/apt.70001","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Perianal fistulising Crohn's disease (PFCD), a chronic debilitating condition affecting a third of patients with CD [<span>1</span>], carries substantial associated morbidity and negatively impacts quality of life (QoL). The three basic tenets of PFCD management have been to drain sepsis, control inflammation and heal the fistula, if appropriate. The caveat is attached to the third tenet because not all Crohn's fistulas are suitable for curative treatment; the principal focus of management is QoL, driven by the patient's expectations, as formally recognised in the recent comprehensive classification of PFCD [<span>2</span>].</p><p>Control of inflammation in PFCD improved greatly with biologic medications and, since the ACCENT trials [<span>3</span>], anti-TNFa therapy has been the mainstay of treatment. While newer medical therapies show promise in PFCD, none has matched its efficacy. Despite this, response rates to medical therapy are incomplete and recurrences common, and long-term fistula healing rates remain low [<span>4</span>].</p><p>McCurdy et al. have addressed reasons for these failures, challenging us to consider PFCD management through the lens of the phases of wound repair: localised inflammation, cell recruitment and tissue remodelling. These three phases lead to the possible outcomes of healing, tract epithelialisation or persistent chronic wounds. Consideration of the molecular and structural mechanisms operating in these phases provides a rationale for different treatment strategies, particularly for some where controversy persists [<span>5</span>].</p><p>For instance, the inflammatory phase is characterised by the presence of specific bacteria and pathogen-associated mucosal patterns that support the use of antibiotics in this phase and during the induction of anti-TNFa therapy [<span>6</span>]. Wound repair involves tightly controlled homeostatic mechanisms; under- or over-activity of these leads to dysfunctional repair, very evident in the epithelialisation of PFCD tracts. While re-epithelialisation is crucial for healing of open wounds, its extension into tubular structures such as fistulas impairs healing. In many cryptoglandular fistulas, this can be circumvented by fistulotomy, but this is usually not possible in PFCD.</p><p>This makes timing of seton removal crucial—targeting the point where inflammation is controlled but tract epithelialisation is yet to occur. While the recommendation of removing setons after the second induction dose of infliximab often appears too soon to control inflammation, the median of 8 months reported in many centres may well be too long and impair, rather than facilitate, healing [<span>7</span>].</p><p>To prevent epithelialisation and persistent inflammatory stimulus in the fistula, control of the internal opening remains key. Both PISA II [<span>8</span>] and ADMIRE-CDII [<span>9</span>], that utilised the ‘scrape and close’ technique, supported surgical intervention in addition to seton r","PeriodicalId":121,"journal":{"name":"Alimentary Pharmacology & Therapeutics","volume":"61 6","pages":"1073-1074"},"PeriodicalIF":6.6,"publicationDate":"2025-02-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/apt.70001","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143417458","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}