Inflammatory Bowel Disease Tracker (IBD Tracker)

Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) is a chronic, incurable, life-long condition that significantly negatively impacts a patient's quality of life, and increases their risk of developing colorectal cancer. The causes of IBD are currently unknown, but are thought to be a combination of factors related to an individual's genetics, environment and immune system. A common characteristic of ulcerative colitis and Crohn's Disease, the most prevalent forms of IBDs in the United States, are chronic, relapsing inflammation of the intestinal tract. When patients are in remission they are healthy with no or few symptoms, and can lead normal and productive lives. However, these periods of health alternate with periods of illness (flares) with an unpredictable frequency, during which patients suffer from an array of symptoms including diarrhea, fecal urgency, fecal incontinence, fever, fatigue, abdominal pain and cramping. Inflammation in the colon and rectum often causes ulcers that bleed resulting in bloody stools; as inflammation continues, ulcers can get larger, and even join together increasing the volume of blood lost, leading to anemia in some cases. During episodes of active disease, patients experience a reduced appetite and unintended weight loss. Flares do not have a consistent duration, and can last from weeks to months. Symptoms can range from mild to severe, and can change over time.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there are currently an estimated 1-1.3 million people with IBD in the United States, and most of these patients are diagnosed with the disease before age 30. The burden of living with these lifelong conditions is obviously severe, however the financial burden should also be considered. In 2008, the total annual financial burden for direct treatments costs for patients with IBD in the United States was estimated to be $6.3 billion. Costs includes expenses such as physician services, prescription and over-the-counter drugs, hospitalization, and other direct medical expenses. Indirect costs (including lost earnings or productivity, and lost leisure time) were estimated to amount to an additional $5.5 billion.

Although the study is not targeted at finding a cure for IBD, the goal is to vastly improve the patient's quality of life by identifying biomarkers that emerge, or change predictably in a period leading up to the very beginning of a flare.

The investigators will identify biomarkers that predict an episode of disease is imminent. The investigators will target biomarkers that can be tracked non-invasively, by monitoring changes in the stool microbiome, metabolites in stool and urine, as well as physiological and lifestyle changes by asking patients to wear a wearable device (the Fitbit Charge 3). The investigators will collect blood samples regularly (blood draws are minimally invasive) to monitor additional biomarkers. By intensively monitoring patients in this way for a period of time that encompasses health (remission) and disease (flare), as well as the transition period in between, the investigators hope to amass enough data to tease out such a biomarker, or fingerprint of biomarkers, that benchmark the earliest stages of a flare. The investigators will conduct this study in collaboration with researchers at the Center for Microbiome Informatics and Therapeutics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The ability to non-invasively track biomarkers, to monitor a patient for such an early disease fingerprint, may give that patient the power to manage their lives and their disease with greater precision than they can today. In particular, if that early disease fingerprint appears at a time when the patient still feels well, it is possible they could intervene to block progression of the flare by changing medications, and/or making lifestyle changes thus minimizing the impact of the flare, and the symptoms they experience.

Furthermore, pinpointing the molecular changes that occur systemically, throughout the patients during this transition period, from health (remission) to disease (flare) will give researchers the knowledge and tools with which to begin to develop therapies that can block progression of the disease state, preventing the flare, and perhaps "reset" the body to a state of health. Therapies, like these would greatly relieve the burdens of disease and financial costs for this patient population.