PhD Defence N.Z. (Nienke) Borren

On Wednesday 16 September 2020 N.Z. (Nienke) Borren will defend her dissertation entitled: 'Quality of life in Inflammatory Bowel Disease: when IBD goes beyond the gut'.

The aim of this thesis is to provide more insight into clinical and biological factors that influence the quality of life of patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD). As physicians and researchers, we are usually more focused on objective disease parameters while the patient's quality of life is important. As a result, current knowledge about (treatable) factors influencing quality of life is lacking.  This dissertation therefore starts with an extensive overview of the current literature on one of the most frequently reported symptoms by IBD patients: fatigue. Subsequently, the effect of the relatively new immunotherapies on symptoms that influence the quality of life negatively, such as fatigue, sleep, depression and anxiety, but also the influence of the travel distance to the hospital for patients on this. The last part of this dissertation makes use of new developments in science: the 'omics' technologies. With these new techniques we investigated the underlying pathophysiology of fatigue in IBD and also the impact of a known IBD family history on the course of the disease.