Alex Menys1, Freddy Odille2, Shonit Punwani, Marco Novelli3, Manuel Rodriguez-Justo3, Steve Halligan, David Atkinson, Stuart Taylor
1Centre for Medical Imaging, University College London, UCLH, London, United Kingdom; 2INSERM U947, Universit de Lorraine, Nancy, France; 3Department of Gastrointestinal Pathology, University College London Hospital
Optimal medical management of Crohns disease (CD) relies on accurate identification of patients with acute inflammation. Currently a number of anatomical features seen on MR enterography have been shown to correlate closely with disease activity. Abnormal intestinal motility has been described in CD and may also be a marker for disease activity. We explored quantitatively the relationship between CD activity and intestinal motility assessed using MRI (n=23) against a histopathological standard of reference and validated anatomical MRI markers of activity. We found significant relationships between motility and both end points suggesting motility as a biomarker for inflammatory activity.