Thesis (Ph.D.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Medicine - Department of Tropical Medicine

The term inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) mainly covers ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn{u2019}s disease (CD). Genetic susceptibility together with environmental factors disturbs intestinal homeostasis, resulting in chronic and repeated inflammation-remission cycles. Despite the differences between UC and CD, there are cases where a definite diagnosis cannot be made, resulting in a diagnosis of non-specific colitis. In later years, the concept of Th17 cells has been introduced and it was shown that inflammation previously attributed to Th1 could actually be Th17-driven and that these lymphocytes played an important role in IBD. Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) have been identified as essential peptides in the maintenance of intestinal barrier function and immune homeostasis and they show increased expression in both inflamed UC and CD mucosa.Aim of work: to detect the expression of Th17-associated gene and AMPs gene in patients with IBD and study their impact on clinical presentation of Egyptian patients with IBD. Patients and methods: This is a case control cross sectional study that was conducted on 40 adult subjects referred to Gastrointestinal Endoscopy and Liver Unit, Cairo University; half of them having IBD while the other half were non IBD patients studied as case control. All subjects were submitted to complete medical history, physical examination, laboratory investigations and colonoscopic examination. Results: there was significant correlation between both control group and IBD patients when a group of AMPs [protease inhibitors: elafin and secretory leukocyte peptidase inhibitor (SLPI) as well as cathelicidin antimicrobial peptide (CAMP)] were used to compare between them, indicating that these parameters can differentiate between both groups and detect active disease

Issued also as CD