Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), historically subdivided into Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, is a very heterogeneous condition. While the tendency in medicine is to try to reduce complexity, IBD is a disease that cannot justify a one-size-fits-all principle. Our current clinical classification tools are suboptimal and need further refinement to capture, at least in part, the variety of phenotypes encountered in daily clinical practice. Although these revised classification tools alone will not be sufficient and should be complemented by more detailed molecular subclassifications, optimized clinical phenotypes can contribute to improved trial designs, future translational research approaches, and better treatment outcomes. In the current review, we discuss key clinical features important in IBD disease heterogeneity, tackle limitations of the current classification systems, propose some potential improvements, and raise priorities for future research in this domain.

中文翻译：

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是时候重新审视炎症性肠病的疾病分类了：当前的炎症性肠病分类是否足以实现最佳临床管理？


炎症性肠病（IBD）历史上分为克罗恩病和溃疡性结肠炎，是一种非常异质的疾病。虽然医学界的趋势是试图降低复杂性，但 IBD 是一种不能证明一刀切原则的疾病。我们目前的临床分类工具并不理想，需要进一步完善，以至少部分地捕获日常临床实践中遇到的各种表型。尽管这些修订后的分类工具本身还不够，应该辅之以更详细的分子亚分类，但优化的临床表型可以有助于改进试验设计、未来的转化研究方法和更好的治疗结果。在当前的综述中，我们讨论了 IBD 疾病异质性中重要的关键临床特征，解决了当前分类系统的局限性，提出了一些潜在的改进，并提出了该领域未来研究的优先事项。