Cause of inflammatory bowel disease found

Cause of inflammatory bowel disease found
Inflamed bowel. Nephron, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons. Micrograph of cryptitis in a case of Crohn's disease.

“A major cause of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) has been discovered by UK scientists,” reports the BBC:

They found a weak spot in our DNA that is present in 95% of people with the disease. It makes it much easier for some immune cells to go haywire and drive excessive inflammation in the bowels. The team have found drugs that already exist seem to reverse the disease in laboratory experiments and are now aiming for human trials.

Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis are the most common forms of inflammatory bowel disease. They are estimated to affect half a million people in the UK….One part of the immune system that is highly implicated in IBD are white blood cells called macrophages. These flood the linings of the intestines where they release chemicals – called cytokines – that lead to massive inflammation. Inflammation is part of the body’s normal response to infection, but too much for too long can have devastating health consequences.

Researchers at the Francis Crick Institute conducted a genetic analysis to isolate the cause of inflammatory bowel disease:

They discovered a section of genetic code – or DNA – that turns out to be the macrophage’s “master regulator” of inflammation…The gene controls the suite of inflammatory chemicals the macrophages release, and some people are born with a version that make their body prone to responding excessively…. “This is undoubtedly one of the central pathways that goes wrong for people to get inflammatory bowel disease. “It is the process by which one of the most important cells that causes inflammatory bowel disease goes wrong.”

Additional experiments, chronicled in Nature, “showed drugs that are already approved for other conditions such as cancer were able to calm this excessive inflammation.”

But a new treatment for inflammatory bowel disease will not become available this year or next. Even though researchers know what drugs can be used, they need to find a way of targeting just the macrophages so they do not harm human cells as well. “The drugs would also need to be precisely calibrated to calm the IBD, but not leave a patient susceptible to infection by switching off the good side of inflammation in fighting disease. They aim is to start clinical trials within five years.”

Scientists have also come up with personalized cancer vaccines that cut death rates from melanoma and breast cancer by 40-50%, but regulatory approval will likely take years.

In other news, a new blood test can detect which bowel cancer patients can receive a lifesaving immunotherapy rather than chemotherapy, enabling them to be cancer free after surgery. Around 10-15% of patients with stage two or three bowel cancer have a particular genetic make-up that enables them to benefit from the life-saving immunotherapy known as pembrolizumab.

Even if these medical advances save countless lives, government regulations may delay them from being used for years. The FDA can take years to approve vaccines, medical tests, and drugs. The FDA didn’t approve a home test for HIV until 24 years after it first received an application. According to an FDA advisory committee, the test held “the potential to prevent the transmission of more than 4,000 new HIV infections in its first year of use alone.” That means thousands of people likely got infected with AIDS as a result of the delay in approving it. At least a hundred thousand people died waiting years for the FDA to approve beta blockers.

Earlier, a blood test was developed that detects many brain cancers that doctors previously couldn’t detect until it is too late to save most victims.

LU Staff

LU Staff

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