Advanced gastrointestinal endoscopic imaging for inflammatory bowel diseases

Abstract

Gastrointestinal luminal endoscopy is of paramount importance for diagnosis, monitoring and dysplasia surveillance in patients with both, Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis. Moreover, with the recent recognition that mucosal healing is directly linked to the clinical outcome of patients with inflammatory bowel disorders, a growing demand exists for the precise, timely and detailed endoscopic assessment of superficial mucosal layer. Further, the novel field of molecular imaging has tremendously expanded the clinical utility and applications of modern endoscopy, now encompassing not only diagnosis, surveillance, and treatment but also the prediction of individual therapeutic responses. Within this review, we describe how novel endoscopic approaches and advanced endoscopic imaging methods such as high definition and high magnification endoscopy, dye-based and dye-less chromoendoscopy, confocal laser endomicroscopy, endocytoscopy and molecular imaging now allow for the precise and ultrastructural assessment of mucosal inflammation and describe the potential of these techniques for dysplasia detection.