Background/Aims: Endoscopy is mainly useful for the diagnosis and evaluation of ulcerative colitis. However, frequent endoscopic examination is sometimes contraindicated for patients with severe attacks of ulcerative colitis. Therefore, it is desirable that endoscopic examinations should be performed only at appropriate times. Recently, extracorporeal ultrasonic examination has been accepted as the diagnostic follow-up ulcerative colitis at the clinically active stage. Therefore, we compared findings from extracorporeal ultrasonic examinations with findings from endoscopy and blood tests of the patients. We report the evaluation of the usefulness of extracorporeal ultrasonic examinations.
Methods: We selected twenty patients of active ulcerative colitis on whom ultrasonic examination and endoscopy were performed within a certain period at Surugadai Nihon University Hospital, and compared classification of activity based on endoscopy with results of ultrasonic B-mode imaging and blood flows from color Doppler imaging.
Results/Conclusion: It was confirmed that ultrasonic examinations including evaluation of blood flow yields findings that reflect the status of the disease; therefore, it was suggested that this examination will be a useful method for deciding appropriate timing of endoscopy and for determining the effectiveness of therapy.