A recent article on simplifying the “simple” endoscopic assessment for Crohn’s disease reminded me of a scene from “There’s Something About Mary” (see below) where one of the characters plans to market a 7 minute abs video to replace the 8 minute abs video craze.

The article describes replacing the current “SES-CD” (or Simple Endoscopic Score for Crohn’s disease) with SEMA-CD (or Simplified Endoscopic Mucosal Assessment for Crohn’s disease).

YouTube: 7-minute abs Scene (from There’s Something About Mary)

J Adler et al. Inflamm Bowel Dis 2021; 27: 1585-1592. Development and Testing of a New Simplified Endoscopic Mucosal Assessment for Crohn’s Disease: The SEMA-CD

The SEMA-CD was scored by assigning a numerical value ranging from 0 (remission) to 4 (severe disease) for each bowel region (ileum and colon). The colon score was multiplied by the number of involved colonic segments and then added to the ileum score. “For example, if overall the colon was felt to have moderate involvement, and only the ascending and transverse colon had mucosal abnormalities, then a score of 3 for moderate disease would be multiplied by a total of 2 segments for a total [colon] score of 6.”

Key finding:

• While there was excellent correlation between SES-CD and SEMA-CD, SEMA-CD was much easier as it required one scoring for the entire colon rather than evaluation of each segment

The authors note that clinical assessment is inadequate to monitor CD. CDAI (PCDAI) are poor surrogates for mucosal improvement…”30-68% of patients in clinical remission have evidence of mucosal inflammation on colonoscopy….Patients whose disease is managed based on clinical information alone are more likely to have disease complications, need more surgeries, or lose response to medications.”

My take: The SEMA-CD appears to be much easier than the SES-CD and thus more likely to be useful in clinical practice (& research), especially as it becomes incorporated into routine endoscopy software. If the SEMA-CD is widely adopted, we will need to be on the lookout for the ‘6 minute ab’ version.

Related blog post: Pediatric Adoption of ‘Treat to Target’ & Difficulty ‘Unlearning’