Value of sonography for diagnosis and follow-up of patients with inflammatory bowel diseases: review of a 10 year experience in a community hospital

Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) are chronic inflammatory diseases of the bowel that are of unknown etiology. These diseases either progress with int ermittent flare-ups interrupted by periods of remission or on a chronic act ive progressive mode. Ws include Crohn disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC). Clinical and imaging diagnosis often is challenging, hence explaining the frequent time delay between onset of disease and initiation of therapy . Clinical evaluation is characterized by three consecutive steps: consider a diagnosis of IBD; exclude other causes of inflammatory bowel disease; differentiate CD from UC since a definitive curative surgical treatment is available for UC. US is non-invasive, widely available, easy to perform, and relatively inexp ensive and thus represents a significant advance in the evaluation of these three steps. The role of US in the evaluation of patients with suspected I BD will be reviewed.