Endoscopy in Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Endoscopy is essential in the diagnosis, assessment and management of patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD). It is useful in distinguishing between Ulcerative Colitis and Crohn's Disease and to exclude other diagnoses with similar presentation. Accurate diagnosis in patients with IBD has important implications for medical therapy, selection of surgical options and in predicting overall prognosis. New emerging technologies allow detailed assessment of the affected gut and enable targeted tissue sampling. Various endoscopic therapeutic interventions can be applied in the case of some complications that may arise due to IBD. In this article we review the indications for the use of endoscopy in IBD, focusing on its role in diagnosis, assessment of extent and severity, surveillance for dysplasia and cancer, and in addition, we discuss the potential use of emerging endoscopic technologies in the diagnosis and management of IBD patients.