Pediatric Magnetic Resonance Enterography: Focused on Crohn's Disease

Abstract

Crohn's disease is a chronic idiopathic inflammatory disease of the intestines characterized by frequent relapse and remission. It often develops in children and adolescents, who are vulnerable to repeated exposure to ionizing radiations. Magnetic resonance enterography (MRE) is an increasingly important radiation-free imaging modality that is used to evaluate pediatric patients with Crohn's disease. MRE can evaluate extraluminal and extraintestinal abnormalities as well as the status of the bowel wall. In addition, MRE has an advantage in the evaluation of the small bowel involvement. MRE can be used for the initial diagnosis of Crohn's disease, and can aid in the assessment of disease activity and complications such as penetrating and fibrostenotic diseases. The aims of this article are to review the MRE technique for obtaining diagnostic and high-quality images and to discuss interpretations of imaging findings in patients with Crohn's disease.

Dynamic Contrast-Enhanced MR with Quantitative Perfusion Analysis of Small Bowel in Vascular Assessment between Inflammatory and Fibrotic Lesions in Crohnʼs Disease: A Feasibility Study

“…Therefore, distinguishing the pattern of enhancement is a main clue, but the major limitation of standard morphological sequences is that the evaluation of the enhancement intensity is largely subjective, so more objective parameters evaluating enhancement of pathological bowel may be needed as a complement to visual assessments of bowel wall enhancement [15].…”

Functional foods, conventional treatment and bioactive compounds, assist in management of inflammatory bowel disease

“…However, these techniques make children more prone to CD due to ionizing radiation [30]. Fortunately, MRE is radiation free and constructs the same results as CT and MRI [30][31][32].…”

“…However, these techniques make children more prone to CD due to ionizing radiation [30]. Fortunately, MRE is radiation free and constructs the same results as CT and MRI [30][31][32]. Another diagnostic method is confocal laser-induced endomicroscopy, which was introduced to capture images of "virtual histology" of the gastrointestinal mucosa [33].…”

Baseline Wall Thickness Is Lower in Mucosa‐Healed Segments 1 Year After Infliximab in Pediatric Crohn Disease Patients

“…Traditional modalities used to evaluate small bowel involvement in CD or related complications have mainly consisted of small bowel follow-through (SBFT) (2). Recently, magnetic resonance enterography (MRE) and computer tomography enterography (CTE) have emerged as useful tools for determining CD involvement in the small bowel (3,4). The main advantage of MRE over SBFT or CTE is its lack of ionizing radiation, which is of particular importance when considering small bowel imaging studies in children (5).…”