Small bowel ultrasound: friend or foe?

Abstract

Purpose of review: Crohn's disease (CD), requires accurate diagnosis and regular monitoring to manage disease activity, prevent complications, and improve outcomes. Intestinal ultrasound (IUS) has emerged as a noninvasive, real-time imaging modality, offering a valuable alternative to traditional diagnostic techniques such as magnetic resonance enterography (MRE), endoscopy and capsule endoscopy (CE). This review examines recent advances in IUS for the diagnosis and monitoring of small bowel CD, with a focus on its applications, benefits, and limitations.

Recent findings: Recent studies have demonstrated that IUS provides high sensitivity and specificity in detecting key markers of disease activity, including bowel wall thickness (BWT), bowel wall flow (BWF), and bowel wall stratification (BWS). Advances in IUS techniques, such as elastography and contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS), have expanded its diagnostic and prognostic capabilities, potentially enabling differentiation between inflammation and fibrosis. However, challenges remain, including operator dependency, variability in scoring systems, and reduced sensitivity for superficial mucosal abnormalities. Efforts to standardize parameters and improve training have shown promise in addressing these limitations.

Summary: IUS is a critical complementary tool for assessing disease activity, transmural healing, and postoperative recurrence in small bowel CD. Its noninvasiveness, cost-effectiveness, and real time assessment make it well suited for routine clinical use. Nonetheless, further multicentre studies are needed to validate scoring systems, optimize integration with other modalities, and improve consistency across clinical settings. IUS holds significant potential for advancing personalized care in small bowel CD, though ongoing research is required to refine its applications and maximize its clinical utility.