Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) is a chronic immune‑mediated condition characterised by intestinal symptoms. It is often accompanied by extra‑intestinal manifestations (EIMs) and wider impacts on mental wellbeing, daily functioning, and overall quality of life (Rogler et al., 2021; Faggiani et al., 2024; Castrillon, 2025).
Millions of people worldwide are suffering from IBD, with prevalence rising across Europe and newly industrialised countries (GBD 2017 Inflammatory Bowel Disease Collaborators, 2020; Gorospe et al., 2024). IBD includes Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC), among other conditions, which affect different parts of the gastrointestinal tract and typically follow a relapsing-remitting course.
Symptoms such as abdominal pain, diarrhoea, fatigue, or weight loss vary between patients and fluctuate over time, which together with broader effects on daily life, contribute to a potentially significant overall burden of IBD. This means that effective management is extremely important for the quality of life of patients, requiring a holistic view that looks beyond intestinal inflammation alone.
IBD within the broader IMID landscape
IBD is part of a wider group of immune‑mediated inflammatory diseases (IMIDs), an umbrella term that includes indications within gastroenterology (e.g. IBD), rheumatology (e.g. rheumatoid arthritis), and dermatology (e.g., psoriasis). While these conditions are often characterised by specific organ involvement, shared overlapping immunopathogenic mechanisms increase the risk of developing additional IMIDs over time. Patients with coexisting IMIDs often face a complex care journey: they move between medical specialties, which fragments data across disciplines, and delays recognition of related conditions and coordinated management. You can explore this patient journey here. Understanding the IMID context, both at the patient level and across the broader medical landscape, requires integrating information from the full clinical picture, including input from different specialties, laboratory data and other medical insights. Without such a holistic approach, important elements of the disease evolution and patterns remain siloed.
Why a holistic view matters
Patients with IBD and other IMIDs often experience these conditions as interconnected manifestations of a shared underlying immune dysregulation rather than isolated clinical episodes. Recognising the person behind the diagnosis is essential: their physical symptoms, mental wellbeing, lifestyle, and daily functioning are inseparable and shape how they experience their disease over time.
But “holistic” also means looking beyond the patient level and looking at data across hospitals and even across countries: analysing IMID‑wide diagnostic and treatment data shows how diseases evolve over time, how different management strategies perform, and where patterns emerge across specialties. This broader view helps clinicians anticipate complications, understand the full disease trajectory, and make more informed decisions.
How real‑world evidence supports holistic care
Today, most research relevant for the treatment of IBD is limited to gastroenterological conditions. A key reason for this is that RCTs, while essential, are designed for highly controlled scenarios and narrowly defined patient groups. This means they offer valuable evidence for specific treatment pathways, but cannot capture the full complexity of IMID patients, including coexisting conditions, long‑term outcomes, or the interactions between different aspects of health. Achieving a holistic approach to both IBD research and IBD treatment therefore requires integrating data across specialties and beyond, including mental health, nutrition, and lifestyle. Real‑world evidence (RWE) plays a crucial role in enabling this broader, more connected view.
RWE, derived from routine clinical practice data, complements the more traditional sources. When integrated across specialties, hospitals and longitudinal care, RWE can help to:
- Characterise baseline profiles and disease histories, including coexisting IMIDs and EIMs
- Understand treatment pathways and disease management across specialties related to disease management over time
- Link treatment patterns to outcomes and healthcare resource use to build a more integrated view of the patient journey
In practice, this type of integrated insight becomes possible through platforms such as the LOGEX IMID Observatory, which connects routine data across conditions and hospitals to reveal patterns that support more informed, coordinated decision‑making over time.
