For the first time ever, Crohn’s patients, including 68,000 in Ontario and 3,600 in the Waterloo region alone, have reason to hope that they can one day live disease-free.
Until now, Crohn’s treatments focused mainly on management, meaning that once a person was diagnosed with Crohn’s, they would have to take immune-suppressing medications for the rest of their life and be prone to serious side-effects, including increased risk of infections and certain cancers.
A new treatment, developed by a Canadian biotech firm, Qu Biologics, however, is showing signs it can eliminate the disease altogether by using immunotherapy to restore patients’ immune systems and achieve long-term remission of the disease.
The treatment is under Phase two clinical trials at select sites across Canada, including at McMaster University in Hamilton.
Qu Biologics is looking for patients from Southern Ontario interested in trying this revolutionary treatment as part of the clinical trials.
Why should you care
Canada has among the highest reported prevalence (number of people with Crohn’s Disease or ulcerative colitis) and incidence rates (number of new cases per year) of Inflammatory Bowel Diseases (IBD) in the world.
More and more kids under the age of 10 are developing IBD, especially in Ontario, where the prevalence rose 7.4 per cent per year from 1994 to 2009.
