The Role of Intestinal Ultrasound in Monitoring the Response to Biological Therapy in Patients With Ulcerative Colitis

The Role of Intestinal Ultrasound in Monitoring the Response to Biological Therapy in Patients With Ulcerative Colitis

In this study, the investigators aim to evaluate the role of intestinal ultrasound in evaluation of the therapeutic response to biological therapy in patient with ulcerative colitis

Ultrasound examination is an easily accessible, non-invasive, radiation-free technique, and cheap imaging modality that is often chosen as the first diagnostic method in gastroenterology disease.

performance of bowel ultrasound use of two different probes: low-frequency convex probe (3.0-3.5 MHz) and high-frequency linear probe (5-17 MHz) .

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a chronic inflammatory disease of the gastrointestinal tract, which clinically contains Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis, and other conditions. IBD is characterized by episodes of abdominal pain, diarrhea, bloody stools, weight loss, and the influx of neutrophils and macrophages that produce cytokines, proteolytic enzymes

Intestinal ultrasound has been shown to have high sensitivity and specificity in the detection or exclusion of intestinal inflammatory activity in IBD. advantages of intestinal ultrasound over other imaging modalities include non-invasiveness, rapid availability and low costs ,evaluation of bowel wall thickness, as well as stratification that reflects alterations in histopathology ulcerative colitis (UC). Visualization of the vascularization of the bowel using color Doppler sonography and, direct visualization of motility.

A study done : IUS is preferred for monitoring the disease course and for assessing short-term treatment response. Found that monitoring bowel wall thickening (BWT) alone has the potential to predict the therapeutic response.The primary therapeutic goal in UC is to induce and maintain long-term disease remission; however, there is no single treatment pathwayguidelines recommend the use of either conventional therapies (i.e., aminosalicylates ..etc)Or the use of biologic therapies ( infliximab.)

Inclusion Criteria:

• Any patient above age of 18 years old and diagnosed to have UC and whom not responding to conventional medical therapy and eligible for biological therapy will be recruited in this study

  • moderate to severe UC patients
  • immunosuppressant or corticosteroid refractory disease
  • those with intolerance or contraindication to conventional therapies are eligible to be treated with biological therapy

Exclusion Criteria:

• Patients with UC who are under age of 18 years' old
• Patients with UC who aren't eligible to biological therapy
• patients with complication of UC(fistula , intestinal obstruction , intestinal perforation ,……)
• Patient refuse to participate in the study.