Statins may be an effective treatment for patients with ulcerative colitis | News Center

There may be good news for nearly a million people fighting ulcerative colitis. Ulcerative colitis is a type of inflammatory bowel disease for which there is no practical cure. Statins, a commonly prescribed cholesterol-lowering drug, appear to be effective in treating unexpected symptoms.According to new Stanford medicine study.

Currently, the only lines of defense against ulcerative colitis are anti-inflammatory drugs that do not always work, colectomy, and surgical resection of part or all of the colon.Said it’s important to find another option Pervesh Katri, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Medicine and Biomedical Data Science, and led the research.

“Approximately 30% of patients with ulcerative colitis should eventually undergo colectomy as a last resort. This is a radical measure. You are removing a part of your body.” Katori said. “So I wondered,’Can I use the available data to see if drugs already approved by the FDA can be reused to better treat these patients?'”

Ulcerative colitis causes intestinal inflammation and ulcers, leaving the patient vulnerable to a range of unpleasant symptoms such as abdominal pain, bloody stools, constipation, and malaise. This condition is not life-threatening, but it can be severely debilitating, especially if anti-inflammatory drugs do not work.

Khatri and his team link a small number of drugs to a reduction in ulcerative colitis symptoms by leveraging publicly available datasets of anonymized patient health information, such as genomic and prescription data. Was tracked. After all, atorvastatin, sold under the brand name Lipitor, was one of the top performers, significantly reducing the rate of surgical treatment for ulcerative colitis, the need for anti-inflammatory drugs, and hospitalization rates.

A treatise explaining this study was published on September 16th. Journal of the American Society for Medical Informatics.. Katori is a senior author. Graduate students Lawrence Bye and Madeline Scott are co-authors.

Analyze genes and their effects on drugs

Khatri and his team began the study by analyzing genomic data published from hundreds of patients with ulcerative colitis who underwent colon biopsy. This is a rather common way to help doctors diagnose the disease and its severity. Specifically, Katri and his team were looking for specific genomic “features,” or patterns of genetic activity. This seems to persist in most patients with this condition.

“Examination of national and international data found robust disease features across all datasets, regardless of whether the patient was experiencing redness of the disease,” said Khatri.

From there, the question was to identify how certain drugs affect the genetic activity associated with ulcerative colitis. Khatri turned to data from previously conducted cell laboratory studies showing how certain drugs altered gene activity. The idea was to find a drug that seems to reverse the genetic signature associated with ulcerative colitis. For example, if a patient with ulcerative colitis had reduced activity of genes A and B, the team sought a drug that would increase the activity of those genes. They looked only at drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration, so if they found a drug that worked, it could be deployed to patients sooner.

Appearance of statins

After cross-referencing the genomic and datasets, the team identified three drugs that effectively reverse the genetic signature of ulcerative colitis. “The first two were chemotherapeutic drugs. Of course, I didn’t prescribe them to anyone because of serious side effects, but the third was statins, because statins are generally safe enough. , Some doctors are joking that they should be put in water, “says Katri.