The Dublin score: a new vision for assessment of Ulcerative Colitis

Aims Endoscopic assessment is a crucial part of the management of Ulcerative Colitis (UC). The DUBLIN score (DS) has the advantage of assessing both disease activity and extent.

The aim of our study was to evaluate the performance of the DS compared to the UCEIS.

Methods This is a retrospective study, among patients with UC. Clinico-biological and evolutionary data were collected. We calculated the UCEIS endoscopic score, the Nancy histological index and the DS as a product of the Mayo endoscopic score [0-3] and the disease extent [E1-E3].

Results Fifty patients were enrolled with a mean age of 49.1 years [11-83] and a sex ratio M/F of 1.94. The DS showed a statistically significant correlation with both the UCEIS score [r=0.913, p<0.0001] and the Nancy index [r=0.857, p<0.0001]. Regarding biological parameters, there was a significant positive correlation between DS and CRP [r=0.660, p<0.0001] and a weak negative correlation between DS and both albumin [r= -0.575, p<0.0001] and hemoglobin [r=-0.443, p=0.001]. The DS and UCEIS were significantly associated with the occurrence of disease extension (p<0.0001), the need for colectomy (p<0.0001), as well as the need for immunomodulators (p=0.034 and 0.008 respectively). Both scores were not associated with the need for biotherapy (p=0.2 and 0.194 respectively). During follow-up, twenty patients (40%) were in therapeutic failure. When analyzing, the AUROC in predicting the occurrence of treatment failure in UC was 0.913 [95% CI 0.831–0.996] for DS and 0.924 [95% CI 0.846–1] for UCEIS ([Fig. 1]).

Fig. 1

Conclusions Based on our study, although the DUBLIN score was correlated with inflammatory markers as well as clinical and histological data, it did not show superior performances to the UCEIS.

Publikationsverlauf

Artikel online veröffentlicht:
14. April 2023