[38] However, this association has not been replicated in larger patient cohorts of different ethnic origin and the phenotypic consequences are unknown so far. We therefore initiated a large genotype-phenotype analysis including 1321 Caucasian IBD patients (857 patients with CD, 464 patients with UC) and 1383 healthy, unrelated controls investigating genetic variants in STAT4 as potential susceptibility genes in IBD and potential phenotypic consequences. The gene discussed is STAT4; the disease is inflammatory bowel disease.