Academia & Publications

Prospective real-world study of 234 adults (142 with Crohn's disease, 92 with ulcerative colitis) who started guselkumab at a large tertiary IBD center and were followed for up to a year. About 77% of Crohn's and 81% of ulcerative colitis patients were in clinical remission at week 12, remission was maintained at six months in roughly 85–88%, and adverse events were mostly mild — a safety profile similar to the pivotal trials.

Real-world data from the University of Chicago's IBD center on combining two advanced therapies — guselkumab and upadacitinib — in patients with treatment-refractory IBD, part of an emerging "advanced combination therapy" strategy for the hardest-to-treat cases.

Prospective cohort of 86 patients in clinical remission who switched from intravenous to subcutaneous vedolizumab, including those on dose-escalated IV dosing. One-year treatment persistence was 82.6% with no significant difference between standard and dose-escalated groups, and 97.5% of patients in remission at baseline were still in remission at one year.

Pilot study testing whether a remotely monitored home walking program can reduce frailty in patients with cirrhosis — an early step toward practical, low-cost interventions for a population in which frailty strongly predicts poor outcomes.

Analysis of colonoscopy detection rates across age groups supporting current guidelines to begin colorectal cancer screening at age 45 rather than 50, showing meaningful polyp and cancer detection already present in the 45–49 age band.

Nationwide data linking low ALT levels to both an IBD diagnosis and more active disease, proposing ALT — a routine, inexpensive blood test — as a potential low-cost signal of disease activity in Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis.

Counterintuitively, unusually low (not high) liver enzyme ALT levels — a marker linked to frailty and sarcopenia — predicted higher risk of severe COVID-19, part of this group's broader research into low ALT as an overlooked marker of frailty.

Israeli clinical study testing whether adding a 10-hour daily eating window to a Mediterranean diet improves fatty liver disease outcomes beyond diet alone, contributing practical, lifestyle-based evidence for NAFLD management.

Extends the fibrosis-vaccine-response finding specifically to fatty liver disease, showing that once fibrosis becomes advanced, vaccine antibody response drops meaningfully — reinforcing fibrosis stage, not diagnosis alone, as the key risk marker.

Even when liver transplant recipients produced a weaker antibody response to vaccination, they still experienced significantly milder COVID-19 illness than unvaccinated peers — supporting vaccination in this immunosuppressed population regardless of measured titers.

A commonly cited link between acid-suppressing PPI medications and worse COVID-19 outcomes turned out to be explained by elevated blood sugar rather than the drug itself — reassuring for the many patients on long-term PPI therapy.

In nearly 720 hospital employees, those with advanced liver fibrosis (measured noninvasively via FIB-4) had significantly lower antibody responses to the Pfizer vaccine than those with healthy livers — identifying liver fibrosis as an overlooked risk factor for reduced vaccine protection.

Conference abstract presented at the International Liver Congress 2021, sharing early findings that elderly patients with advanced liver fibrosis mounted a weaker antibody response to the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine — the work later published in full as the Hepatology Communications paper above.

Companion analysis to my earlier colonoscopy work, showing upper endoscopy (OGD) is likewise safe and clinically useful in patients over 90, supporting its use in appropriately selected very elderly patients rather than withholding it by age alone.

Multicenter data showing IBD patients who skipped their post-discharge GI follow-up appointment were significantly more likely to be readmitted within 30 days, underscoring how a simple follow-up visit can prevent a hospital bounce-back.

Large HMO database study of over 27,000 patients finding that lower vitamin D levels were associated with a higher likelihood of testing positive for H. pylori and with lower eradication success after treatment.

Multicenter study finding that many hospitalized IBD flare patients did not receive guideline-recommended blood clot prevention, yet clot rates stayed low — highlighting a gap between guidelines and practice and raising questions about who truly needs prophylaxis.

Retrospective review of colonoscopies performed on patients aged 90 and older, showing the procedure is safe in this population and often changes management — for example detecting cancer or controlling bleeding — despite being underused due to age-related caution.

Review of how sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P) receptor modulators work in ulcerative colitis, with a focus on etrasimod. It covers the approved oral agents (ozanimod and etrasimod) and investigational ones, summarizing efficacy and safety and where they fit — particularly for patients with moderate disease and those moving from conventional to advanced therapy.

A review examining when IBD medication "holidays" (temporarily stopping therapy) might reasonably be considered, who might be a candidate, and how to weigh the risks — a clinically important question as more IBD patients reach durable remission on advanced therapies.