IBD DT Seminero

So, Jen, when we talk about combination therapy, most people think about the old days when you and I were training, when it was anti-TNFs and an immune suppressant, either a thiopurine or methotrexate.

But can you give the listeners an idea of what we're going to talk about today?

Yeah, I think that you'll start to see some new terms that we use associated with this.

One term that many people are using is ACT or ACT, which is advanced combination therapy or dual biologic therapy.

You'll see both phrases used.

Combination therapy, as you already alluded to, is ACT.

more along the lines of a biologic or advanced therapy in addition to some traditional immunosuppressant, wherein advanced combination therapy or dual biologic therapy is using that and taking it a step further, wherein we use two known biologic agents within the field or a biologic agent and a small molecule, and we combine them together for ongoing enhancement of the efficacy value and treatment of the disease.

So we do an IBD retreat in our region, which is multidisciplinary, not only surgery, but also other medical specialties.

And we include community providers that take care of a lot of IBD.

And one of The former trainees that I helped train came up to me and said, you know, it's really good to hear about this, although I don't have that many patients.

I don't have any patients on combined advanced therapies.

And so I said, that's good because you're not supposed to have a lot.

So I told her that in my practice, it's probably 5% of my patients or less.

What would you say your practice is, is a number that are on advanced combination therapies?

Yeah, I would say for me, it's a little bit higher, probably closer to about 10% is usually what I estimate.

And I think that living in Florida and getting a large population referred to me from not only my state, but surrounding states that typically has advanced disease is part of the reason for that.

And I think that I agree with what you just said.

It is not meant to be the majority of the patients that we're treating, and it is meant to be an avenue to gain traction in some of these more difficult-to-treat patient populations that we may be accustomed to in these specialty centers.