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Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Jul 7, 2016; 22(25): 5642-5654
Published online Jul 7, 2016. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v22.i25.5642
Light and sound - emerging imaging techniques for inflammatory bowel disease
Ferdinand Knieling, Maximilian J Waldner
Ferdinand Knieling, Clinic for Children and Adolescent Medicine, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, 91054 Erlangen, Germany
Ferdinand Knieling, Maximilian J Waldner, Medical Department 1, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, 91054 Erlangen, Germany
Maximilian J Waldner, Erlangen Graduate School of Advanced Optical Technologies, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, 91054 Erlangen, Germany
Author contributions: Knieling F and Waldner MJ analyzed the literature and wrote the manuscript.
Supported by Interdisciplinary Center for Clinical Research of the University Medical Center of Erlangen (to Knieling F); Erlangen Graduate School in Advanced Optical Technologies by the German Research Foundation in the framework of the German excellence initiative (to Waldner MJ).
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors have no conflict of interest to report.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Maximilian J Waldner, MD, Medical Department 1, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Ulmenweg 18, 91054 Erlangen, Germany. maximilian.waldner@uk-erlangen.de
Telephone: +49-9131-8545025 Fax: +49-9131-8535959
Received: March 24, 2016
Peer-review started: March 25, 2016
First decision: April 14, 2016
Revised: May 2, 2016
Accepted: May 23, 2016
Article in press: May 23, 2016
Published online: July 7, 2016
Processing time: 101 Days and 21 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: Patients with inflammatory bowel disease are known to have a high demand of recurrent evaluation for therapy and disease activity. Further, the risk of developing cancer during disease progression is growing from year to year. Especially, new physical imaging approaches utilizing light and sound waves have facilitated the development of endoscopic techniques. Within this article we highlight their potential for initial diagnosis, assessment of disease activity and surveillance of cancer development in established techniques and recent advances such as wide-view full-spectrum endoscopy, chromoendoscopy, autofluorescence endoscopy, endocytoscopy, confocal laser endoscopy, multiphoton endoscopy, molecular imaging endoscopy, B-mode and Doppler ultrasound, contrast-enhanced ultrasound, ultrasound molecular imaging, and elastography.