No Change in Determining Crohn's Disease Recurrence or Need for Endoscopic or Surgical Intervention With Modification of the Rutgeerts' Scoring System

Abstract

The postoperative endoscopic recurrence score, commonly referred to as the Rutgeerts score, was designed to predict clinical recurrence risk in Crohn's disease (CD) patients undergoing ileocolonic resection based on early endoscopic findings at the anastomosis and in the neoterminal ileum.¹ In the pivotal publication, the i2 category, including aphthous lesions in the terminal ileum as well as ileocolonic anastomosis lesions, had a heterogeneous recurrence risk. Because anastomotic ulcers were suspected to be postsurgical ischemic lesions and less predictive of progressive disease,² a modified Rutgeerts score (mRS) was proposed: i2a, lesions confined to the anastomosis ±<5 isolated aphthous ulcers in the ileum; i2b, more than 5 aphthous ulcers in the ileum with normal mucosa in between, ± anastomotic lesions.^3,4.