Type:
Educational Exhibit
Keywords:
Abdomen, Gastrointestinal tract, Small bowel, MR-Enterography, MR, MR-Diffusion/Perfusion, Imaging sequences, Technical aspects, Contrast agent-oral, Education and training, Inflammation, Metabolic disorders
Authors:
D. G. Lagonegro Anderson; Ciudad Autonoma de Buenos Aires/AR
DOI:
10.26044/ecr2019/C-3199
Background
We treated 1152 patients with presumptive diagnosis of inflammatory pathologies from May,
2012,
to the date of development of this study resulting in proven pathological findings.
We normally examine patients with Crohn's Disease (CD) (for assessment of the primary disease and its complications),
Ulcerative Colitis (UC),
celiac disease,
postoperative adhesions,
enteritis,
small bowel malignancies,
active ileitis and polyposis syndromes.
Computed Tomography and traditional SBFT result in high radiation doses due to the young age of patients suffering from CD or UC and to the chronic and relapsing nature of CD which may require repeated imaging examinations in order to assess the status of the disease.
For this reason,
MRE has been introduced as a radiation-free alternative diagnostic method.
MRE yields more insightful information about the pathologic changes seen deep to the mucosal layer of the gastrointestinal tract wall and to those portions of the small bowel not accessible endoscopically.
While SBFT shows only extramural pathologies,
MRE shows both mural and extramural pathologies and can discern between intestinal inflammation or intestinal fibrosis.
The importance of this function lies in that the first one has pharmacological treatment while the latter has surgical management.