Thank you for finding your way to this first blogpost from ibdoc.net. What is ibdoc.net? To understand that, you need to know first a few things about IBD, calprotectin and BÜHLMANN Laboratories AG, situated in Schönenbuch close to Basel, Switzerland.
BÜHLMANN is well known for its faecal calprotectin tests, which are used by many medical diagnostic laboratories around the world. Faecal calprotectin is a very robust marker to differentiate between organic inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and non-organic bowel disease (IBS) on one hand and to follow-up the therapy of patients diagnosed with IBD on the other hand. IBD includes Crohn’s Disease (CD) and Ulcerative Colitis (UC) both serious chronic diseases of the intestinal tract with severe symptoms ranging from distressing to debilitating. The clinical course of most patients with IBD is marked by periods of remission with intermittent relapses characterized by increased intestinal inflammation. Numerous published studies have looked at faecal calprotectin levels in patients during the course of the disease. The results have shown that calprotectin is a good predictor of relapses in patients with IBD. Because sustained clinical remission is associated with mucosal healing in the gut and reduced rates of hospitalisation, it is important to monitor faecal calprotectin on a routine level to identify patients likely to relapse. Knowing calprotectin levels of a patient enables clinicians to adapt their treatment early to ease or even prevent a possible relapse. At the same time many patients have to take expensive drugs with substantial side effects and it is important that the medication levels are closely matched to the current inflammatory status of the patient. At the moment patients are sending their stool samples to a laboratory to measure the calprotectin levels. This process is slow and laborious.
That is why BÜHLMANN is soon launching the IBDoc® system, which will change the way faecal calprotectin is measured and monitored in IBD Patients. IBDoc® will allow patients to measure their calprotectin levels by themselves at home and the test result is automatically sent to their doctor allowing them to closely follow the status of their patients.
ibdoc.net will serve as the first point of information for all IBDoc® users. Here, IBDoc® users will find information about the IBDoc® system, news about Calprotectin, IBD and Home Testing as well as support information for both doctors and patients in the form of FAQs and tutorial videos.
We all are excited to launch IBDoc® in the coming months and welcome your input. If you wish to contact us, please write an email to info@ibdoc.net.