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Introduction: Symptoms, endoscopy and histology have been proposed as therapeutic targets in ulcerative colitis (UC). Observational studies suggest that the achievement of histologic remission may be associated with a lower risk of complications, compared with the achievement of endoscopic remission alone. The actiVE ulcerative colitis, a RanDomIsed Controlled Trial (VERDICT) aims to determine the optimal treatment target in patients with UC., Methods and Analysis: In this multicentre, prospective randomised study, 660 patients with moderate to severe UC (Mayo rectal bleeding subscore [RBS] ≥1; Mayo endoscopic score [MES] ≥2) are randomly assigned to three treatment targets: corticosteroid-free symptomatic remission (Mayo RBS=0) (group 1); corticosteroid-free endoscopic remission (MES ≤1) and symptomatic remission (group 2); or corticosteroid-free histologic remission (Geboes score <2B.0), endoscopic remission and symptomatic remission (group 3). Treatment is escalated using vedolizumab according to a treatment algorithm that is dependent on the patient's baseline UC therapy until the target is achieved at weeks 16, 32 or 48. The primary outcome, the time from target achievement to a UC-related complication, will be compared between groups 1 and 3 using a Cox proportional hazards model., Ethics and Dissemination: The study was approved by ethics committees at the country level or at individual sites as per individual country requirements. A full list of ethics committees is available on request. Study results will be disseminated in peer-reviewed journals and at scientific meetings., Trial Registration Number: EudraCT: 2019-002485-12; NCT04259138., Competing Interests: Competing interests: VJ has received consulting/advisory board fees from AbbVie, Alimentiv Inc (formerly Robarts Clinical Trials), Arena Pharmaceuticals, Asieris, Bristol Myers Squibb, Celltrion, Eli Lilly, Ferring, Fresenius Kabi, Galapagos, GlaxoSmithKline, Genentech, Gilead, Janssen, Merck, Mylan, Pandion, Pendopharm, Pfizer, Reistone Biopharma, Roche, Sandoz, Takeda and Topivert; and speaker’s fees from Abbvie, Ferring, Janssen, Pfizer, Shire and Takeda. GZ has received consulting fees from Alimentiv Inc. ZW is an employee of Alimentiv Inc. SA is an employee of Takeda Pharmaceuticals. JFC reports receiving research grants from AbbVie, Janssen Pharmaceuticals and Takeda; payment for lectures from AbbVie, Amgen, Allergan. Ferring Pharmaceuticals, Shire and Takeda; consulting fees from AbbVie, Amgen, Arena Pharmaceuticals, Boehringer Ingelheim, BMS, Celgene Corporation, Eli Lilly, Ferring Pharmaceuticals, Galmed Research, Genentech, Glaxo Smith Kline, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Kaleido Biosciences, Imedex, Immunic, Iterative Scopes, Merck, Microbia, Novartis, PBM Capital, Pfizer, Protagonist Therapeutics, Sanofi, Takeda, TiGenix, Vifor; and holds stock options in Intestinal Biotech Development. GRD has served as a consultant and/or received speaker fees from Abbvie, Alimentiv, AstraZeneca, Biora (Progenity), Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol Myers Squibb, Celltrion Healthcare, Cytoki Pharma, Eli Lilly, Ferring, Galapagos, GlaxoSmithKline, Gossamer Bio, Immunic, InDex Pharmaceuticals, Janssen, Johnson & Johnson, Kaleido, Pfizer, Prometheus Biosciences, Prometheus Laboratories, Protagonist Therapeutics, Takeda, Tillotts and Ventyx Biosciences. MF is an employee of Takeda Pharmaceuticals. GWM is a consultant for Alimentiv and in receipt of research funding from AstraZeneca and Johnson and Johnson. LPB has received personal fees from AbbVie, Adacyte, Alimentiv, Alma Bio Therapeutics, Amgen, Applied Molecular Transport, Arena, Biogen, BMS, Celltrion, CONNECT Biopharm, Cytoki Pharma, Enthera, Ferring, Fresenius Kabi, Galapagos, Genentech, Gilead, Gossamer Bio, GSK, HAC-Pharma, IAG Image Analysis, Index Pharmaceuticals, Inotrem, Janssen, Lilly, Medac, Mopac, Morphic, MSD, Norgine, Nordic Pharma, Novartis, OM Pharma, ONO Pharma, OSE Immunotherapeutics, Pandion Therapeutics, Par’Immune, Pfizer, Prometheus, Protagonist, Roche, Sanofi, Sandoz, Takeda, Theravance, Thermo Fisher, Tigenix, Tillots, Viatris, Vifor, Ysopia, Abivax, Samsung, Ventyx, Roivant and Vectivbio. WJS reports receiving consulting fees from Abbvie, Abivax, Alfasigma, Alimentiv, Beigene, Biora (Progenity), Celltrion, Forbion, Genentech, Gossamer Biosciences, Index Pharmaceuticals, Prometheus Biosciences, Protagonist Therapeutics, Shoreline Biosciences, Vedanta Biosciences, Ventyx Biosciences, Zealand Pharma; and stock or stock options from BeiGene, Gossamer Bio, Biora (Progenity), Prometheus Biosciences, Prometheus Laboratories, Shoreline Biosciences, Ventyx Biosciences, Vimalan Biosciences, Vivreon Gastrosciences; he is an employee at Shoreline Biosciences and Ventyx Biosciences. Spouse: Iveric Bio—consultant, stock options; Biora (Progenity)—stock; Prometheus Biosciences—employee, stock, stock options; Prometheus Laboratories—stock, stock options; Ventyx Biosciences—stock, stock options; Vimalan Biosciences—stock, stock options. SS reports research grants from Takeda, Pfizer, Tillotts Pharma, Abbvie and Biogen; and personal fees for speaker role and advisory board meetings from Janssen, Amgen, Tillotts Pharma, Abbvie, Takeda, Celgene, Roche, Pharmacosmos, and Falk Pharma outside the submitted work. ST has received grants/research support from AbbVie, Buhlmann, Celgene, ECCO, Helmsley Trust, IOIBD, Janssen, Lilly, Pfizer, Takeda, UCB, UKIERI, Vifor and Norman Collisson Foundation; consulting fees from Abacus, AbbVie, Actial, ai4gi, Alcimed, Allergan, Amgen, Apexian, Aptel, Arena, Asahi, Aspen, Astellas, Atlantic, AstraZeneca, Barco, Biocare, Biogen, BLPharma, Boehringer Ingelheim, BMS, Buhlmann, Calcico, Celgene, Cellerix, Cerimon, ChemoCentryx, Chiesi, CisBio, ComCast, Coronado, Cosmo, Ducentis, Dynavax, Elan, Enterome, EQrX, Equillium, Falk, Ferring, FPRT Bio, Galapagos, Genentech/Roche, Genzyme, Gilead, Glenmark, Grunenthal, GSK, GW Pharmaceuticals, Immunocore, Immunometabolism, Indigo, Janssen, Lexicon, Lilly, Medarex, Medtrix, Merck, Merrimack, Mestag, Millenium, Neovacs, Novartis, Novo Nordisk, NPS-Nycomed, Ocera, Optima, Origin, Otsuka, Palau, Pentax, Pfizer, Pharmaventure, Phesi, Phillips, P&G, Pronota, Protagonist, Proximagen, Resolute, Robarts, Sandoz, Sanofi, Santarus, Satisfai, Sensyne Health, Shire, SigmoidPharma, Sorriso, Souffinez, Syndermix, Synthon, Takeda, Theravance, Tigenix, Tillotts, Topivert, Trino Therapeutics with Wellcome Trust, TxCell, UCB Pharma, Vertex, VHsquared, Vifor, Warner Chilcott and Zeria; speaker fees from AbbVie, Amgen, Biogen, BMS, Falk, Ferring, Janssen, Lilly, Pfizer, Shire, Takeda and UCB. He has no stocks or share options. SV has received grants from AbbVie, J&J, Pfizer, Takeda and Galapagos; consulting and/or speaking fees from AbbVie, AbolerIS Pharma, AgomAb, Alimentiv, Arena Pharmaceuticals, AstraZeneca, Avaxia, BMS, Boehringer Ingelheim, Celgene, CVasThera, Cytoki Pharma, Dr Falk Pharma, Ferring, Galapagos, Genentech-Roche, Gilead, GSK, Hospira, Imidomics, Janssen, J&J, Lilly, Materia Prima, MiroBio, Morphic, MrMHealth, Mundipharma, MSD, Pentax, Pfizer, Prodigest, Progenity, Prometheus, Robarts Clinical Trials, Second Genome, Shire, Surrozen, Takeda, Theravance, Tillots Pharma AG and Zealand Pharma. GR is an employee of Alimentiv Inc. JS is an employee of Alimentiv Inc. JH has received consulting fees from Alimentiv Inc.; and speaker’s fees from Abbvie, Janssen and Takeda. CM has received consulting fees from AbbVie, Alimentiv, Amgen, AVIR Pharma, Bristol Myers Squibb, Ferring, Fresenius Kabi, Janssen, McKesson, Mylan, Takeda, Pfizer and Roche; speaker's fees from AbbVie, Amgen, AVIR Pharma, Alimentiv, Ferring, Janssen, Takeda and Pfizer; and research support from Pfizer. RS is an employee of Alimentiv Inc. SCM is an employee of Alimentiv Inc. NA reports no conflicts of interest. MB has received honoraria from Shire, Allergan, Pfizer, and Takeda; advisory board fees from AbbVie, Takeda, Janssen, Lupin, Gilead, Pfizer, and Novo Nordisk; clinical trials: AbbVie, Novo Nordisk, Gilead, Takeda, Boehringer Ingelheim, Janssen, Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Intercept; research publications: AbbVie (2021–letter signed). PB reports receiving research grants from Abbvie, Amgen, Celltrion, Mylan, Pfizer and Takeda; lecture fees from AbbVie, Celltrion, Janssen, Lilly, and Takeda; and consulting fees Abbvie, Arena Pharmaceuticals, BMS, Celltrion, Dr Falk, Galapagos, Janssen, Lilly, Pentax, PSI-CRO, Roche, Takeda, and Tetrameros. DG has received advisory board fees from Takeda, Abbvie, Janssen, Pfizer, Merck, and Freseni Kabi. WH reports no conflicts of interest. MH reports no conflicts of interest. MK has received personal fees from Shire, a Takeda company, during the conduct of the study; personal fees and non-financial support from Takeda; personal fees and non-financial support from Janssen; personal fees and non-financial support from Ferring, outside the submitted work. RP has received consulting/advisory board fees from AbbVie, Janssen, Pfizer and Allergan. MSS has received consulting, speaker and advisory board fees from Abbvie, Janssen, Pfizer, and Takeda. LW reports no conflicts of interest. BGF is a scientific advisory board member for AbbVie, Allergan, Amgen, AstraZeneca, Avaxia Biologics, Boehringer-Ingelheim, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Celgene, Elan, Biogen, Ferring, Genentech–Roche, Janssen–Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Millennium, Nestlé, Novo Nordisk, Novartis, Pfizer, Prometheus, Protagonist, Receptos, Salix, Sigmoid Pharma, Takeda, Teva, TiGenix, Tillotts Pharma and UCB Pharma; consulting fees from AbbVie, Actogenix, Akros, Albireo Pharma, Allergan, Amgen, AstraZeneca, Avaxia Biologics, Avir Pharma, Axcan, Baxter Healthcare, Biogen Idec, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Calypso Biotech, Celgene, Elan–Biogen, EnGene, Ferring, Genentech–Roche, GiCare Pharma, Gilead Sciences, Given Imaging, GlaxoSmithKline, Ironwood, Janssen Biotech–Centocor, Janssen–Johnson & Johnson, Kyowa Hakko Kirin, Eli Lilly, Merck, Mesoblast Pharma, Millennium, Nestlé, Novo Nordisk, Novartis, Pfizer, Prometheus, Protagonist, Receptos Salix, Sanofi, Shire, Sigmoid Pharma, Synergy Pharma, Takeda, Teva, TiGenix, Tillotts Pharma, UCB Pharma, Vertex, VHsquared, Wyeth, Zealand and Zygenia; lecture fees from AbbVie, Janssen–Johnson & Johnson, Takeda, and UCB Pharma, and grant support from AbbVie, Amgen, AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Janssen Biotech–Centocor, Janssen–Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Receptos, Sanofi, and Takeda and is the Senior Scientific Officer of Alimentiv Inc. Alimentiv Inc is an academic gastrointestinal contract research organisation (CRO), operating under the Alimentiv Health Trust. Alimentiv Inc. provides comprehensive clinical trial services, precision medicine offerings, and centralised imaging solutions for endoscopy, histopathology and other imaging modalities. The beneficiaries of the Alimentiv Health Trust are the employees of the enterprises it holds. BGF, GRD, GZ, VJ and WJS are consultants to Alimentiv Inc. and have a primary academic appointment; they do not hold equity positions or shares in Alimentiv Inc., (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2024. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.)

Background: Capsule endoscopy (CE) is a valuable tool in the diagnostic evaluation of obscure gastrointestinal bleeding, but limited information is available on the reproducibility of CE findings., Objective: To compare two successive CE studies with push enteroscopy (PE) in patients presenting with chronic obscure gastrointestinal bleeding., Methods: A prospective study was conducted. Ten patients (seven men and three women) with chronic obscure gastrointestinal bleeding and no contraindications for CE were eligible and completed the trial. For each patient, the first capsule was administered on day 1, the second capsule was administered on day 2 and PE was performed on day 3. Endoscopists were blinded to the capsule findings. Capsule findings were assessed independently by two investigators blinded to PE findings., Results: A potential small intestinal bleeding source was found in 60% of the patients when all the studies were combined. A bleeding source was found in four patients in both CE studies. The second CE also identified a bleeding source in a fifth patient. Interobserver agreement by kappa analysis was 0.642 to 1.000 (P < or 05) for the CE studies. PE identified a potential small bowel bleeding site in four patients, including one patient who had negative CE studies., Conclusions: This study confirmed the reproducibility of CE findings on successive studies. Some patients did not have a source of bleeding in the small intestine, and all studies found this.

Background and Aims: Capsule endoscopy (CE) has been increasingly used for diagnosing diseases of the small bowel. It is an attractive technique for assessing celiac disease (CD) because it is noninvasive and provides a close and magnified view of the mucosa of the entire small bowel. In this study, we evaluated the accuracy of CE and interobserver agreement in recognizing villous atrophy (VA) using histopathology as the reference. We also explored the extent of small bowel involvement with CD and the relationship between the length of the affected bowel and the clinical presentation., Methods: Ten CD patients with histologically proven VA and the same number of controls were subjected to CE. Four, blinded to histology findings, investigators (two with and two without prestudy CE experience) were asked to diagnose VA on CE images., Results: Based on assessment of all four investigators, the overall sensitivity, specificity, PPV, and NPV of CE in diagnosing VA were 70%, 100%, 100%, and 77%, respectively. The sensitivity and the specificity of the test was 100% when the reports of experienced capsule endoscopists only were analyzed. The interobserver agreement was perfect (kappa= 1.0) between investigators with prestudy CE experience and poor (kappa= 0.2) between the investigators who had limited prestudy exposure to CE. Celiac patients with extensive small bowel involvement had typical symptoms of malabsorption (diarrhea, weight loss) as opposed to mild and nonspecific symptoms in patients whose disease was limited to the proximal small bowel. CE was tolerated well by all study participants with 95% reporting absence of any discomfort., Conclusions: Although based on a small sample size, the study suggests that CE may be useful in assessing patients with CD. Familiarity with CE technology appears to be a critical factor affecting the accuracy of the test. Larger studies are warranted to more precisely define the advantages and limitations of CE in CD.

Background: Wireless capsule endoscopy (CE) is increasingly being used in the investigation of obscure gastrointestinal (GI) bleeding, but some studies have found that many of the bleeding lesions recognized by this technique are within the reach of conventional endoscopy., Methods: The results of CE performed in the authors' centre in a 12 month period for obscure GI bleeding were retrospectively reviewed., Results: Of the 46 patients with obscure GI bleeding, CE found a definite or probable cause in 19 (41%) and a possible cause in another 10 (22%), with an overall diagnostic yield of 63%. One of these lesions was found to be within reach of conventional gastroscopy, two were within reach of push enteroscopy, four were within reach of colonoscopy and one was within reach of retrograde enteroscopy through a stoma. The percentage of patients with a bleeding source within reach of routine endoscopy but missed during pre-CE endoscopy was significantly higher for those patients having endoscopy only in the community (30% [eight of 27]) versus in the authors' centre (0% [zero of 19])., Conclusions: CE was valuable for diagnosing bleeding lesions not only within the small bowel, but also in the stomach and colon. However, "second-look" endoscopy may be considered before ordering CE for obscure GI bleeding when local expertise is available.