Clinical value of antibodies in inflammatory bowel diseases

Inflammatory bowel disease – IBD (Crohn’s disease – CD, ulcerative colitis – UC) – immune-mediated diseases of the digestive tract of unknown etiology. The basis of the pathogenesis of IBD is a violation of the protective mechanisms of the intestinal barrier as a result of a complex interaction of environmental factors, a genetic predisposition and defects in the activation of the immune response in the lymphoid tissue of the intestinal mucosa. Three groups of antibodies are detected in the sera of IBD patients: autoantibodies, antimicrobial antibodies and antibodies to peptide antigens. In CD, the most useful diagnostic markers are ASCA; in UC patients – pANCA. Antibodies are not among the diagnostic criteria for CD and UC, the diagnosis of which is traditionally made on the basis of a complex of clinical, radiological, endoscopic and histological signs, but can be used as useful additional non-invasive markers for early diagnosis, assessment of clinical phenotypes, prognosis and effectiveness of treatment of these diseases.