Wearable devices designed to capture health-related and physiological data may improve inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) management among patients, the authors of a prospective cohort study pointed out during their poster presentation at the Crohn’s and Colitis Congress 2023, on January 19, in Denver, Colorado.

“Advances in wearable technology allow for passive, continuous and non-invasive assessment of physiological metrics including heart rate variability (HRV), the measure of small time differences between each heartbeat, a marker of autonomic nervous system function,” Robert Hirten et all said in their research paper. “To develop algorithms that can predict IBD flares using wearable device signatures, we launched a national wearable device study called The IBD Forecast study.”

The researchers enrolled the first 125 study participants across 29 states in the US, all more than 18 years of age and with IBD, for the IBD Forecast Study. All participants were required to use a commercially available wearable device, download the custom eHive app, and answer daily survey questions.

Clinical flare was assessed with daily Patient Reported Outcome (PRO)-2 surveys (flare; PRO-2 Crohn’s disease >7, PRO-2 ulcerative colitis >2). Inflammatory flare was assessed via patient reported C-reactive protein (CRP), with inflammatory flare defined as >5 mg/L.

Upon pooling the results, the researchers found that “the mesor, or midline of the circadian pattern of the SDNN was higher in those with clinical flare (mean 44.43; 95% CI 41.25-47.75) compared to those in clinical remission (mean 43.03; 95% CI 39.94-46.22) (p<0.004).” Also, the mesor of the circadian pattern of the SDNN was lower in those with an inflammatory flare (mean 38.16; 95% CI 30.86-45.72) compared to those with normal inflammatory markers (mean 49.51; 95% CI 43.12-56.26) (p<0.001).

“This preliminary analysis of a small proportion of the IBD Forecast Study cohort demonstrates the feasibility of using wearable devices to identify, and may potentially predict, IBD flares,” the authors said.

—Priyam Vora

Reference:
Hirten R, Danieletto M, Landell K et al. Presentation number: P072. Physiological metrics collected from wearable devices identify inflammatory and clinical inflammatory bowel disease flares. Presented at: Crohn’s and Colitis Congress 2023