Search

Background: Crohn's disease (CD) is characterized by discontinuous inflammation. Failure to identify skipping lesions of the terminal ileum (TI) or transmural changes can lead to incorrect management., Methods: Eligible adult patients with CD undergoing ileo-colonoscopy and computed tomography enterography or magnetic resonance enterography within 6 months. We determined the prevalence of endoscopic skipping (normal ileum on colonoscopy but proximal small bowel inflammation on cross-sectional imaging), skip lesions (discontinuous inflammation along the gastrointestinal tract identified on cross-sectional imaging), structuring, and penetrating complications., Results: Among 202 patients, 45 (22.3%) had endoscopic skipping proximal to TI intubation. Fifty patients (24.5%) had small bowel skip lesions, primarily in the ileum. Strictures were identified in 34 patients (16.8%) through both imaging and ileo-colonoscopy, in 21 patients (10.4%) solely through cross-sectional imaging, and in 3 patients (1.5%) solely through ileo-colonoscopy. Approximately 36.2% of stricturing cases would be missed without cross-sectional imaging. Penetrating complications, including abscesses (2.5%) and various fistula types (4.9%), were detected in 15 (7.4%) patients., Conclusions: Ileo-colonoscopy missed detection of active CD in approximately one-fifth of cases due to more proximal disease location. Stricturing disease might be missed in more than a third of cases if cross-sectional imaging is not performed., (© 2024 Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation.)

Purpose: In pancreatic adenocarcinoma, the difficult distinction between normal and affected pancreas on CT studies may lead to discordance between the pre-surgical assessment of vessel involvement and intraoperative findings. We hypothesize that a visual aid tool could improve the performance of radiology residents when detecting vascular invasion in pancreatic adenocarcinoma patients. Methods: This study consisted of 94 pancreatic adenocarcinoma patient CTs. The visual aid compared the estimated body fat density of each patient with the densities surrounding the superior mesenteric artery and mapped them onto the CT scan. Four radiology residents annotated the locations of perceived vascular invasion on each scan with the visual aid overlaid on alternating scans. Using 3 expert radiologists as the reference standard, we quantified the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve to determine the performance of the tool. We then used sensitivity, specificity, balanced accuracy ((sensitivity + specificity)/2), and spatial metrics to determine the performance of the residents with and without the tool. Results: The mean area under the curve was 0.80. Radiology residents' sensitivity/specificity/balanced accuracy for predicting vascular invasion were 50%/85%/68% without the tool and 81%/79%/80% with it compared to expert radiologists, and 58%/85%/72% without the tool and 78%/77%/77% with it compared to the surgical pathology. The tool was not found to impact the spatial metrics calculated on the resident annotations of vascular invasion. Conclusion: The improvements provided by the visual aid were predominantly reflected by increased sensitivity and accuracy, indicating the potential of this tool as a learning aid for trainees., Competing Interests: Declaration of Conflicting InterestsThe author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Background: Stricturing, penetrating complications and extraintestinal manifestations (EIMs) are frequent in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). There is limited data on the prevalence of these complications in patients with IBD. Therefore, we aimed to assess the burden of these complications detected incidentally on cross-sectional imaging., Methods: A retrospective study conducted at two tertiary care centers in London, Ontario. Patients (≥18 years) with a confirmed diagnosis of IBD who underwent CT enterography (CTE) or MR enterography (MRE) between 1 Jan 2010 and 31 Dec 2018 were included. Categorical variables were reported as proportions and the mean and standard deviations were reported for continuous variables., Results: A total of 615 imaging tests (MRE: 67.3% [414/615]) were performed in 557 IBD patients (CD: 91.4% [509/557], UC: 8.6% [48/557]). 38.2% (213/557) of patients were male, with mean age of 45.6 years (±15.8), and median disease duration of 11.0 years (±12.5). Among patients with CD, 33.2% (169/509) had strictures, with 7.8% having two or more strictures and 66.3% considered inflammatory. A fistula was reported in 10.6% (54/509), the most common being perianal fistula (27.8% [15/54]), followed by enterocutaneous fistula (16.8% [9/54]), and enteroenteric fistula (16.8% [9/54]). Additionally, 7.4% (41/557) of patients with IBD were found to have an EIM on cross-sectional imaging, with the most prevalent EIM being cholelithiasis (63.4% [26/41]), followed by sacroiliitis (24.4% [10/41]), primary sclerosing cholangitis (4.8% [2/41]) and nephrolithiasis (4.8% [2/41])., Conclusions: Approximately 40% of patients with CD undergoing cross-sectional imaging had evidence of a stricture or fistulizing disease, with 7% of patients with IBD having a detectable EIM. These results highlight the burden of disease and the need for specific therapies for these disease phenotypes., (© 2024 The Author(s). United European Gastroenterology Journal published by Wiley Periodicals LLC. on behalf of United European Gastroenterology.)