Bowel Ultrasound in Inflammatory Bowel Disease Vita-Salute San Raffaele University

Overview

Learning Goals

Bowel Ultrasound procedures have peculiar features that make these techniques unique among the diagnostic tools for IBD.

In fact, intestinal ultrasound is a non-invasive imaging method, that doesn’t use contrast media by mouth or intravenously except in extremely selected cases; it can be performed in real time (Point of the care of ultrasound, POCUS) allowing to speed up the medical decision-making process; it is comfortable for patients, making it a frequently repeatable and extremely strategic method in the era of "Treat-to-target" and "Tight control"; it also has a diagnostic accuracy comparable to that of more invasive and expensive imaging methods such as magnetic enteroresonance and enteroTC. Moreover, the development of ultrasound scores for the activity and severity of IBD make it an accurate and reliable alternative to colonoscopy, which therefore today sees its field of use limited to particular situations in which it is necessary to perform a biopsy sampling.

The expected didactic results, to be verified throughout the training and the final project in the Bowel Ultrasound in Inflammatory Bowel Disease program at the Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, consist of:

• the acquisition if the ultrasound anatomy (normal and pathological) of the small and large intestine;

• the theoretical and practical acquisition of ultrasound techniques of intestinal loops;

• the acquisition of the up-to-date indications and results of BU procedures, in order to promote a non-invasive approach for the diagnosis and follow-up of IBDs.