Intestinal Ultrasound in Inflammatory Bowel Disease: A Novel and Increasingly Important Tool

Wei-Chen Lin; Chen-Wang Chang; Ming-Jen Chen; Horng-Yuan Wang

doi:10.4103/jmu.jmu_84_22

Intestinal Ultrasound in Inflammatory Bowel Disease: A Novel and Increasingly Important Tool

J Med Ultrasound. 2023 Jan 19;31(2):86-91. doi: 10.4103/jmu.jmu_84_22. eCollection 2023 Apr-Jun.

Authors

Wei-Chen Lin^{1

2

3}, Chen-Wang Chang^{1

2

3}, Ming-Jen Chen^{1

2

3}, Horng-Yuan Wang^{1

2

3}

Affiliations

¹ Division of Gastroenterology, Department of Internal Medicine, Mackay Memorial Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan.
² Mackay Junior College of Medicine, Nursing and Management, Taipei, Taiwan.
³ Mackay Medical College, Taipei, Taiwan.

Abstract

New and efficacious medical therapies have become available that have greatly enhanced clinicians' ability to manage inflammatory bowel diseases (IBDs). IBD activity should be assessed regularly in scheduled examinations as the part of a treat-to-target strategy for IBD care. The gold-standard approach to investigating IBD is colonoscopy, but this is an invasive procedure. Intestinal ultrasound (IUS) has played a crucial role in recent years regarding the assessment of IBD activity because it is noninvasive, safe, reproducible, and inexpensive. IUS findings could inform changes in therapeutic interventions for IBDs; this would necessitate fewer endoscopies and enable faster decision-making processes. Furthermore, patients are accepting and tolerant of IUS examinations. This review outlines the current evidence and gives indication regarding the use of IUS in the management of IBDs.

Keywords: Crohn’s disease; inflammatory bowel disease; intestinal ultrasound; ulcerative colitis.

Publication types

Review