VEO-IBD and the Microbiome Sampling Instructions

If you or your child chooses to participate in this study, our research study staff may ask you to:

  1. Assist your treating physician in the completion of a one-time initial subject profile about general subject information, subject health profile, family health history, and treatment history.
  2. VEO-IDB patients will be asked to collect a series of "baseline" stool and oral samples at home on three consecutive days each month for six months. Parents and healthy siblings may also be asked to collect daily samples. 
  3. If the VEO-IBD patient experiences a change in disease (either remission to flare or flare to remission) OR a change of medication, we ask that an additional set of "perturbation" samples be collected for 7 consecutive days. Otherwise, the collection protocol is the same as for the "baseline" samples.
  4. One complete sample set (either "baseline" or "perturbation") includes a stool tube, a stool swab stored in preservative, and a tongue swab. In addition to these samples, a brief questionnaire on the subject's health, nutrition, and medications should be filled out. Detailed sample collection instructions and all sampling materials will be provided by the research study staff. Samples should be stored in a provided insulated bag inside your home freezer until you are ready to ship them to study personnel. A daily sample collection should take no longer than 15 minutes.
  5. In some cases, we may ask you for additional testing, such as genome sequencing, gene expression profiling, assessment of the immunological response, assessment of bacterial DNA in your blood sample.

Sample Collection Schedule

Samples will be collected on three consecutive days each month for six months, for a total of 21 baseline samples. 

In the event of a perturbation, we ask that subjects collect seven additional daily samples. 

Additional Questions

If you would like more information about the sample collection protocol described above or the sample collection schedule, click the contact link to the right or email the research staff directly at veoibd-microbiome@stanford.edu.