STAT4 and inflammatory bowel disease: It is therefore of special interest that particularly the STAT4 SNP rs7574865, which has previously shown to be the most significant SNP in the association studies for other IBD-associated autoimmune diseases such as SLE, rheumatoid arthritis [23], [27], [32] and Sjögren's disease, [23], [34] is associated with both CD susceptibility and CD phenotype.