Lay summary
Inflammatory bowel disease (Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis) are common in New Zealand. There is no cure and young people live with severe gut symptoms such as pain, diarrhoea, weight loss and bleeding. The treatments include powerful and expensive drugs and major surgery, including stoma formation. At present, there are expected to be in excess of 20,000 New Zealanders living with IBD. These people see specialists often, may be hospitalised and have reduced opportunities in education and employment. We have developed a new test that can accurately determine how inflamed the bowel is. This means that doctors can advise the right treatment for the right patient without them requiring a colonoscopy, which is invasive, expensive and resource-limited in the current healthcare system. We plan to see how the new test responds to drug therapy. Once this validation has occurred, we will develop a point-of-care test.