Patient perception of bowel urgency and remission in moderately to severely active Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis: a qualitative study.

Background: Bowel urgency, the sudden and immediate need to have a bowel movement, is common in patients with ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn's disease (CD). While its impact in UC is well established, less is known about its importance in CD. Further, what level of bowel urgency control patients with UC or CD would consider to be acceptable or in remission has not been established.

Bowel Urgency in Ulcerative Colitis: Current Perspectives and Future Directions.

Bowel urgency (BU), the sudden or immediate need for a bowel movement, is one of the most common and disruptive symptoms experienced by patients with ulcerative colitis (UC). Distinct from the separate symptom of increased stool frequency, BU has a substantial negative impact on quality of life and psychosocial functioning. Among patients with UC, BU is one of the top reasons for treatment dissatisfaction and one of the symptoms patients most want improved.

Ixekizumab Improved Patient-Reported Genital Psoriasis Symptoms and Impact of Symptoms on Sexual Activity vs Placebo in a Randomized, Double-Blind Study.

Introduction: Genital psoriasis (GenPs) is common and distressing for patients, but is often not discussed with physicians, and no previous clinical trials have assessed the effects of biologics specifically on GenPs and its associated symptoms.

Aim: To report results for novel patient-reported outcomes (PROs) for the assessment of symptoms and the sexual impact of GenPs before and after treatment in the IXORA-Q study.

Methods: IXORA-Q (NCT02718898) was a phase III, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study of ixekizumab (80 mg/2 weeks after 160-mg initial dose) vs placebo for GenPs.

The Static Physician's Global Assessment of Genitalia: A Clinical Outcome Measure for the Severity of Genital Psoriasis.

Introduction: Genital psoriasis is a common but frequently overlooked manifestation of psoriasis with a considerable impact on patients' quality of life. Currently no validated clinical trial outcome measures exist to assess genital psoriasis severity that meet regulatory agency requirements. Methods: This study describes the development of the static Physician's Global Assessment of Genitalia (sPGA-G) scale, a clinical outcome measure for the assessment of genital psoriasis severity that accounts for the erythematous clinical presentation of genital psoriasis.

Processing reactions in the later stages of hormone activation.

Three tiers of processing have been investigated in the reactions that transform prohormones into their mature end products. Evidence is presented that the proteolytic reactions that convert lipotropin into shortened forms of beta-endorphin take place in individually distinct stages. After these cleavages have occurred, the removal of basic residues by carboxypeptidase H and amidation of the products are effected by independent reactions which do not synergise.

Sequential processing reactions in the formation of hormone amides.

The substrate specificity of an enzyme with amidating activity, present in porcine pituitary, was investigated by examining its ability to convert the synthetic peptides D-Tyr-Val-Gly and D-Tyr-Val-Gly-Lys-Arg to the dipeptide amide D-Tyr-Val-CONH2. The purified enzyme catalysed the amidation reaction with the tripeptide but did not accept the pentapeptide as a substrate. With the mixture of enzymes present in a membrane fraction from porcine pituitary or the enzymes in a secretory granule fraction, both the tripeptide and pentapeptide substrates gave rise to D-Tyr-Val amide; the formation of dipeptide amide from the pentapeptide, however, involved a latency period after which amidation occurred at a similar rate with the two substrates.