Seminar Series: Dr. Rocio Sedano

Developing a New Index for Pouchitis Disease Activity: A Journey from Concept to Validation

Rocio Sedano

Assistant Professor
Department of Medicine
Division of Gastroenterology
Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry
Western University

Cross-appointed Assistant Professor
Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics
Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry
Western University

Short Biography:
Dr. Rocio Sedano is a Gastroenterologist at SJHC/LHSC and an Assistant Professor at Western University. She completed advanced clinical and research fellowships in Inflammatory Bowel Disease and in Neurogastroenterology and Motility at Western, and recently completed her MSc in Clinical Trials at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

Abstract:
Pouchitis remains one of the most complex complications after ileal pouch surgery, yet for many years we lacked a reliable, validated way to measure how active the disease truly was. My research journey began with a fundamental question: What tools do we actually have, and do any of them work the way we need them to?
We first conducted a systematic review to map every published pouchitis scoring system and to determine whether any had ever been fully validated. That effort made one thing clear: no existing tool met modern standards. This led us to launch a formal RAND/UCLA appropriateness exercise with international experts to identify which endoscopic and histologic features were meaningful, reproducible, and clinically relevant.

Only after building that foundation did we move into index development. Using clinical trial data from patients with chronic pouchitis, we tested existing indices and potential components, studying their reliability and responsiveness. Through this iterative process, the Atlantic Pouchitis Index (API) emerged as a practical and unified measure of pouch inflammation. We then validated the API externally using data from the vedolizumab EARNEST trial to ensure real-world applicability.

This presentation will share that full journey, from reviewing the literature, to reaching expert consensus, to constructing and validating the API, and how this work is helping establish a common language for pouchitis assessment in research and clinical practice.

Area of Research:
Clinical trials, Index development, Inflammatory Bowel Disease, Neurogastroenterology, Outcome measures, Upper Crohn’s Disease, Pouchitis.

Learn more about Dr. Sedano:
Website

Date: Friday, February 27
Time: 1:30 pm - 2:30 pm
Location: PHFM 3015 (Western Centre for Public Health and Family Medicine) or Zoom (request link by email epibio@uwo.ca)