PhD defense by Lone Larsen

The PhD defense will take place

Friday Nov 1st, 2019 at 13:00
In the auditorium, Medicinerhuset, Aalborg University Hospital

After the defense there will be held a reception. All are welcome.

Supervisors

Prof. Tine Jess, MD, D.M.Sc, Aalborg University and Statens Serum Institut

Prof. Asbjørn Mohr Drewes, MD, PhD, D.M.Sc, Aalborg University and Aalborg University Hospital

Dr. Jan Fallingborg, MD, D.M.Sc, Aalborg University Hospital

Dr. Bent Ascanius Jacobsen, MD, Aalborg University Hospital

Assessment Committee

Prof. Ulla Møller Weinreich, PhD, Aalborg University

Prof. Ebbe Langholz, D.M.Sc, Herlev-Gentofte Hospital

Prof. Corinne Gower-Rousseau, PhD, HDR, PH, France

About the PhD thesis

The emerging possibilities of treating the inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, with biologics towards the end of the 1990's, tended to revolutionize the management of patients. The new biologics were, however, expensive, and it became essential to be able to monitor the clinical efficacy, the health economic burden, and the real-life effects of these medications. Therefore, in Denmark, it became mandatory to register information on treatment with biologics for IBD in a national quality database.

At Aalborg University Hospital, a former population-based cohort database contained information on all IBD patients diagnosed and followed through 1978-2002 in the North Denmark Region. By 2014, this database was no longer operational and there was only scarce updating of patients. The need for at new database with the ability to include updated information on diagnosis, phenotypes, disease course and treatment as well as patient reported outcomes became evident, in particular to provide clinicians with a continuously updated overview of treatments and effects, and optimally, this database should also be able to report to the national quality database for treatment with biologics and provide the basis for observational research and recruitment for trials. The PhD study deals with the establishment of such a database (GASTROBIO) and the use of it.

During the establishment of GASTROBIO, three specific questions emerged: 1) Is it feasible to set up touch screens in the outpatient clinic?, 2) Can we assess real life use of the biological drug, infliximab, during the first 16 years post marketing?, and 3) Are we able to use the database to identify eligible patients for the study of a specific clinical question? This led to the three projects upon which the PhD is based.

Collectively, the three studies contribute to showing that it is feasible and beneficial to establish a database with clinical measures and patient reported outcomes for the clinical management of patients with inflammatory bowel diseases, for observational research, for identification of patients for trials, and for data transfer to a mandatory national quality database.