Year of primary qualification: 1999
Current institution: Universtiy of Leuven and University of Leuven Hospitals, Belgium
Social media contacts: Linkedin
Title of presentation: Medical therapy after 'curative' ileocaecal resection: what's new? (Symposium: Controversies in Crohn's disease management)
Learning objectives: To understand the role of medical prophylaxis after curative ileocecal resection for CD. To learn about the most recent evidence on endoscopy guided medical prophylaxis. To learn about treatment algorithms tailored to prognostic markers and ongoing colonic or extraintestinal disease.
Clinical/research background
Gert Van Assche is Professor of Medicine in the Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine at the University of Leuven. His research focuses on novel therapies in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), fibrogenesis, and mucosal immunology in IBD. He is a staff physician in the Division of Gastroenterology at the University Hospitals of Leuven, where he also serves as Clinical Operational Officer in the Board of Directors. He is the incoming chief of the joined division of Hepato-Gastroenterology.
Dr Van Assche received a bachelor's degree in philosophy and his medical degree from the University of Leuven. He subsequently trained in internal medicine and gastroenterology in Leuven. From 1994 to 1998, Dr Van Assche combined his GI fellowship with a doctoral program on regulatory peptides in motility and inflammation in the GI Hormones Lab in Leuven and the Intestinal Diseases Research Program at McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada. From 2012 until 2013 he was Director of Clinical and Translational IBD Research at Mt Sinai Hospital, Toronto and Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto, ON, Canada and he currently is Clinician Adjunct at the UofT. For his research, he received grants and awards from the Flemish Foundation for Scientific Research (FWO Vlaanderen), the Désiré Collen Research Foundation, the Royal Society of Medicine, and the Inbev-Baillet Latour Foundation. Dr. Van Assche’s scientific work has resulted in authorship or co-authorship of more than 200 peer-reviewed papers. He has been consulting several pharmaceutical companies for IBD clinical development programs. He holds a senior clinical research position at the Flemish Foundation for Scientific Research (FWO Vlaanderen).
Relevant peer-reviewed publications
- Van Assche, G; Van Ranst, M; Sciot, R; et al. Progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy after natalizumab therapy for Crohn's disease. New England Journal of Medicine 2005; 353: 362-368
- D'Haens, G; Baert, F; van Assche, G; et al. Early combined immunosuppression or conventional management in patients with newly diagnosed Crohn's disease: an open randomised trial Group Author(s): Belgian Inflammatory Bowel Dis Res; N Holland Gut Club Lancet 2008;371:660-667
- Van Assche, G; D'Haens, G; Noman, M; et al. Randomized, double-blind comparison of 4 mg/kg versus 2 mg/kg intravenous cyclosporine in severe ulcerative colitis Gastroenterology 2003;125:1025-1031
- Van Assche, Gert; Dignass, Axel; Panes, Julian; et al. The second European evidence-based Consensus on the diagnosis and management of Crohn's disease: Definitions and diagnosis Group Author(s): ECCO. Journal of Crohns & Colitis 2010;4:7-27
Information submitted for ESCP Dublin 2015
