February 19-22, 2025
The research team at Gastroenterology Department led by Prof Qian CAO and Dr Jing LIU at Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital in Hangzhou China, has recently achieved notable progress in a significant study, which revealed leukocyte adhesive function as a potential predictive biomarker for response to vedolizumab therapy in biologic-naïve Crohn’s disease patients. These findings were presented via a poster at the 20th Congress of the European Crohn’s and Colitis Organisation (ECCO 2025), garnering widespread attention.
Crohn’s disease is a chronic inflammatory bowel disease. The goals of its treatment are to reduce inflammation, control symptoms, and improve patients’ quality of life. Vedolizumab, a commonly used biological agent, works by blocking the migration of leukocytes to the gut. However, not all patients respond to vedolizumab equally. Therefore, identifying biomarkers capable of predicting treatment response is crucial for achieving personalised therapy.
By partnering with StickyCell Biotech Ltd Shanghai and Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital in Hangzhou, DataToSee’s team make significant contribution on the software development and data modelling in this study, enabling the researchers to investigate the relationship between leukocyte adhesive function and the efficacy of vedolizumab. The results indicated that the pre-treatment level of a patient’s leukocyte adhesive function may be associated with their response to vedolizumab therapy. This suggests that by assessing a patient’s leukocyte adhesive function, physicians could potentially predict the patient’s response to vedolizumab more accurately early in the treatment course, thereby aiding in the selection of the most suitable treatment plan for the patient.
The key contributions of this study include:
- Being the first to explore leukocyte adhesive function as a potential biomarker for predicting response to vedolizumab in treatment-naïve Crohn’s disease patients.
- Providing new insights and directions for personalised treatment, which may help improve the success rate of Vedolizumab therapy.
- Potentially reducing unnecessary treatment attempts for patients, thereby lowering healthcare costs and improving the patient experience.
The principal investigator of the study, Dr. Colin Cheng, stated, “We are very excited about the results of this research. Leukocyte adhesive function testing holds promise as a simple and effective tool to assist clinicians in selecting appropriate biological agents for Crohn’s disease patients. In the future, we will continue our in-depth research to validate these findings and explore their potential in clinics.”