Intestinal Ultrasound assessment in patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease remission

Muhammad, Ahmed Mustafa; Barrak, Abdulmonem Mohammad; Amin, Muhammad Abu-elwafa; El-Fikky, Naser Abdel-naby; Abd El Kader, Mohamed El Sebaey

Intestinal Ultrasound assessment in patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease remission

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

¹ Internal medicine department, Al-Azhar university Faculty of medicine, Cairo.

² Diagnostic Radiology department, Al-Azhar university Faculty of medicine, Cairo.

³ Clinical pathology department, Al-Azhar university Faculty of medicine, Cairo.

Abstract

Background: Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) is a chronic inflammatory condition of the gastrointestinal tract, with Ulcerative Colitis (UC) and Crohn’s Disease (CD) being the most common subtypes. Accurate, non-invasive methods for assessing disease remission are essential to reducing the reliance on invasive colonoscopy.
Aim: To evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of intestinal ultrasound (IUS) in detecting bowel wall thickness (BWT) as a predictor of disease remission in IBD patients.
Methods: This study included 50 IBD patients in remission (40 UC, 10 CD). BWT was measured using IUS, and FC levels were assessed. Diagnostic performance was analyzed using sensitivity, specificity, and ROC curves. All patients underwent endoscopic and histopathological assessment for remission status.
Results: BWT at a cutoff of ≤3.6 mm showed 100% sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy in predicting remission. FC at a cutoff of ≤160 μg/g showed 90.91% sensitivity and 66.67% specificity.
Conclusion: IUS-measured BWT is a highly accurate, non-invasive marker for assessing disease remission in IBD patients. FC also provides useful predictive value, but with lower specificity. These findings support the use of IUS as a reliable alternative to colonoscopy for disease monitoring.

Keywords