B. Rubini et al., Value of sonography for diagnosis and follow-up of patients with inflammatory bowel diseases: review of a 10 year experience in a community hospital, J RADIOLOG, 82(11), 2001, pp. 1601-1611
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.