Follow up of Crohn's disease under therapy with hydro-MRI

Purpose. Evaluation of typical MRI-findings in patients with Crohn's disease receiving therapy. Correlation with the course of disease. Patients and methods. 81 follow-up MRI-studies in 25 patients conducted within a period of 3 weeks to 4 years were evaluated retrospectively. Therapy consisted in various combinations of antibiotics and immunosuppressive agents and if necessary operation. The findings of the MRI-studies were correlated with clinical data (e.g. operation of Crohn's complications) and the subjective perception during therapy. Results. The morphological substrate of Crohn's disease in the Hydro-MRI images is reliably detected. Especially in a delineation of extraluminal changes MRI is superior to endoscopy and enteroclysis. Independent from clinical symptoms short- and middle-term follow-up showed inflammatory changes of the intestinal wall in all 25 patients. In 24/81 studies there was persistence or even progression of Crohn's disease in the MRI-studies, although patients were free of symptoms by the time of image acquisition. Conclusion. Hydro-MRI is a modality for the evaluation of inflammatory changes in patients with Crohn's disease. Independent from clinical symptoms persistence of Crohn's disease is detectable.