Dr. Huang and her team conducted a pilot study in 2019-2020 to assess the feasibility of tight control management using remote monitoring in pregnant people with IBD. Patients signed up onto an IBD Dashboard to submit their clinical symptom scores every trimester of pregnancy, and completed a home IBDoc fecal calprotectin (to measure the level of inflammation in the gut) – the system flagged elevated symptoms scores or fecal calprotectin to the team, and this prompted diagnostic tests, medication optimization, or escalation of therapy. The study team found that patients preferred the home monitoring compared to the standard lab-based testing, and that a combination of BOTH clinical scores and objective disease marker of fecal calprotectin may better predict disease activity.
We thank all study participants, referring clinicians, and laboratory scientists for making this research possible.
Read the full published manuscript.
Jogendran R, O’Connor K, Jeyakumar A, Tandon P, Nguyen GC, Maxwell C, Huang V. Optimizing maternal and neonatal outcomes through tight control management of inflammatory bowel disease during pregnancy: a pilot feasibility study. Sci Rep. 2023 May 22;13(1):8291.