Maaser Christian, Maconi Giovanni, Kucharzik Torsten, Allocca Mariangela
Published in March 2022, United European gastroenterology journal.
Abstract
Intestinal ultrasound(IUS) is a non‐invasive and accurate tool to assessinflamma-toryboweldisease.TheECCO‐ESGARguidelinerecommendsthe use of IUS for the assessment of disease activity and complications in Crohn's disease(CD).In addition, an increasing body of evidence suggests the use of IUS as alternative to co-lonoscopy in monitoring CD and in assessing disease activity of ulcerative colitis.
Early responsiveness of IUS findings by the first weeks of treatment and the advantage to perform the procedure in real time may dramatically change frequency of the assessment of treatment response in the future and speedup the clinical decision‐making process. Development of validated and reproducible sonographic scores to measure disease activity and therapeutic response and spread of knowledge of IUS remain relevant issues for the future in which current researchers and the International Bowel Ultrasound(IBUS ) Group are actively engaged.