Ultrasound

Abstract

The management of patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) requires evaluation with objective tools, both at the time of diagnosis and throughout the course of the disease, to determine the location, extension, activity and severity of inflammatory lesions, as well as, the development of complications. Bowel ultrasound—which is well accepted by patients, non-invasive inexpensive and widely accessible—has been successfully employed as the imaging technique of choice in screening patients with clinically suspected IBD as well as in the follow-up of patients with known Crohn’s disease to assess the site and extent of the lesions, early detection of intraabdominal complications, and recurrence in those submitted to resective surgery. Despite several attempts to correlate ultrasound findings with clinical and biochemical activity, there are as yet no convincing data on the usefulness of ultrasound in assessing the activity of Crohn’s disease.