Integrating Intestinal Ultrasound into an Inflammatory Bowel Disease Practice: How to Get Started

Abstract

Intestinal ultrasound (IUS) offers a safe, noninvasive, point-of-care tool for diagnosing and monitoring disease activity in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). IUS is used widely in Europe and Canada for IBD, but it remains underutilized in the United States. Growing interest in IUS in the United States has prompted many IBD centers to train their faculty in IUS. This, however, raises questions about how to effectively use this new tool in the United States, which does not use a social medicine model like those implemented in Europe and Canada. Here, we provide a practical framework for incorporating IUS in an IBD practice in the United States, including training requirements, equipment, and protocols for implementing IUS in daily practice.

Advancing transmural remission as a treatment target in Crohn's disease: The future of tight‐control strategy?

“…16 Furthermore, its diagnostic accuracy approaches that of more elaborate conventional radiological examinations like MRE. 17,18 It is worth noting that other studies have already demonstrated the efficacy of clinical decision-making involving IUS findings in reducing inflammation in patients with IBD, 19 and IUS is increasingly finding application in CD management, [20][21][22] underscoring its potential utility as a pivotal tool in striving for transmural remission. Inflammatory bowel disease gastroenterologists should be encouraged to consider transmural remission as a viable treatment goal for CD management.…”