Publication summaries
Clear breakdowns of study rationale, design, endpoints, outcomes, and relevance to clinical practice.
Program Overview
Translating emerging IBD evidence into practical clinical insight.
IBD Digital Digest is a medical education initiative designed to make important new IBD research more accessible through short expert-led videos and downloadable publication slide summaries.
Expert commentary
Brief video insights from leading Canadian IBD experts highlighting what clinicians should know.
Downloadable slides
Ready-to-use educational slide decks for local education, discussion, and peer-to-peer learning.
Featured Expert
Dr. Laura Targownik
Dr. Laura Targownik is Director of the Division of Gastroenterology & Hepatology at the University of Toronto and a clinician-researcher at Mount Sinai Hospital’s IBD Clinic and Zane Cohen Centre. A former Chief of Gastroenterology at the University of Manitoba, she founded the Ontario Best Practices Research Initiative in IBD, Canada’s leading real-world and patient-reported data resource. She has authored 180+ peer-reviewed papers and serves on the Royal College Examiner’s Board for Gastroenterology.
Active across national IBD consortia, she previously chaired Equity & Diversity for the Canadian Association of Gastroenterology and now leads GI Women CAN!. Her research uses large-scale data to evaluate IBD therapies, improve mental-health care delivery, and understand gender effects on patient journeys and outcomes.
Featured Publications
Recent evidence in focus.
Each publication feature includes an expert video commentary and a downloadable slide deck.
Publication 01
Appendicectomy versus switching to a JAK inhibitor in inducing remission in patients with active ulcerative colitis after biologic therapy failure: COSTA 1-year results
Study summary
The COSTA study was a multicentre, prospective, patient-preference cohort study evaluating laparoscopic appendicectomy as an adjunct to advanced therapy compared with switching to a JAK inhibitor in patients with active ulcerative colitis after biologic therapy failure.
- At 12 months, clinical remission without therapy failure was higher with appendicectomy than with JAK inhibitor therapy.
- Corticosteroid-free remission, clinical response, endoscopic response, and endoscopic improvement also favoured appendicectomy.
- Therapy failure and colectomy rates were similar between groups, with a low appendicectomy-related complication rate.
Publication 02
The effect of dose intensification after secondary loss of response to ustekinumab in Crohn’s disease: results of the REScUE study
Study summary
The REScUE study was an investigator-initiated, multicenter, randomized, placebo-controlled trial conducted in Belgium. It evaluated two ustekinumab dose-intensification strategies in adults with Crohn’s disease who experienced secondary loss of response while receiving ustekinumab 90 mg every 8 weeks.
- All patients received intravenous ustekinumab reinduction, then were randomized to subcutaneous ustekinumab 90 mg every 4 weeks or every 8 weeks until week 48.
- Steroid-free clinical remission at week 48 was low and not significantly different between groups: 15% with every-4-week dosing versus 19% with every-8-week dosing.
- Serious adverse events occurred in 17% and 13% of patients in the every-4-week and every-8-week groups, respectively, with no new safety signal reported.
Funding Acknowledgement
IBD Digital Digest is made possible through funding by:
AbbVie, Celltrion Healthcare, Merck, Organon, Pfizer, Takeda