Crohn's Disease Activity Index

The Crohn's Disease Activity Index or CDAI is a research tool used to quantify the symptoms of patients with Crohn's disease. This is of useful importance in research studies done on medications used to treat Crohn's disease; most major studies on newer medications use the CDAI in order to define response or remission of disease. As Crohn's disease is a disease with a variety of symptoms that affect quality of life, the quantification of symptoms may be of secondary importance to a quantitative assessment of the effect on quality of life. This has been addressed by the Inflammatory Bowel Disease Questionnaire (IBDQ) and other indices of quality of life for patients with Crohn's disease. The Crohn's Disease Activity Index or CDAI is a research tool used to quantify the symptoms of patients with Crohn's disease. This is of useful importance in research studies done on medications used to treat Crohn's disease; most major studies on newer medications use the CDAI in order to define response or remission of disease. As Crohn's disease is a disease with a variety of symptoms that affect quality of life, the quantification of symptoms may be of secondary importance to a quantitative assessment of the effect on quality of life. This has been addressed by the Inflammatory Bowel Disease Questionnaire (IBDQ) and other indices of quality of life for patients with Crohn's disease. The CDAI was developed by WR Best and colleagues from the Midwest Regional Health Center in Illinois, in 1976. The index consists of eight factors, each summed after adjustment with a weighting factor. The components of the CDAI and weighting factors are the following: *One point each is added for each set of complications: Remission of Crohn's disease is defined as CDAI below 150. Severe disease was defined as a value of greater than 450. Most major research studies on medications in Crohn's disease define response as a fall of the CDAI of greater than 70 points. The Harvey-Bradshaw index was devised in 1980 as a simpler version of the CDAI for data collection purposes. It consists of only clinical parameters: