Serum REG3α Shows Promise for Detecting Ulcerative Colitis Disease Activity

Scientists have identified a new blood biomarker, serum REG3α, that may help doctors more accurately monitor ulcerative colitis.

Why It Matters

Ulcerative colitis is difficult to manage because it often requires routine invasive procedures, such as colonoscopies, to assess whether the disease is active or in remission. Current blood tests such as C-reactive protein (CRP) and stool tests such as fecal calprotectin are the norm but have limitations of their own – they are not always sensitive enough to give a clear picture of what is going on inside the gut.

What the researchers discovered

A better signal: Serum levels of REG3α, a protein produced by gut Paneth cells, rise with inflammation. Measurement of these levels in the blood stream has been shown to correlate very well with the patient’s symptoms and the actual inflammation seen on endoscopy.

Better Together: Doctors are finding that combining CRP with REG3α levels is significantly better at predicting disease activity than using either test alone.

Tracking Recovery: Early data suggest that as patients start to feel better and their gut inflammation heals, their REG3α levels fall, suggesting it could be a useful way to gauge how well a treatment is actually working.

What’s Next

This is an exciting discovery, but we're just getting started. “The findings need to be validated in larger, more diverse populations to determine how well it works in a real-world clinical setting,” the researchers say.