Editorial
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Radiol. Aug 28, 2015; 7(8): 198-201
Published online Aug 28, 2015. doi: 10.4329/wjr.v7.i8.198
Small bowel imaging of inflammatory bowel disease
Emanuele Casciani, Chiara De Vincentiis, Gianfranco Gualdi
Emanuele Casciani, Gianfranco Gualdi, Department of Emergency Radiology, “La Sapienza” University-Hospital Umberto I, 00166 Rome, Italy
Chiara De Vincentiis, Department of Radiology, “La Sapienza” University-Sant’Andrea’s Hospital, 00189 Rome, Italy
Author contributions: Casciani E designed the study and wrote the manuscript; De Vincentiis C acquired the material, analysed data and helped to write the manuscript; Gualdi GF provided the collection of part of the material.
Conflict-of-interest statement: We have read and understood BPG’s revision policy on declaration of interests and declare that we have no competing interests.
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: Dr. Emanuele Casciani, Department of Emergency Radiology, “La Sapienza” University-Hospital Umberto I, Viale del Policlinico 155, 00166 Rome, Italy. emanuelecasciani@gmail.com
Telephone: +39-6-49979465 Fax: +39-6-6630218
Received: January 28, 2015
Peer-review started: February 1, 2015
First decision: March 6, 2015
Revised: March 26, 2015
Accepted: May 26, 2015
Article in press: May 27, 2015
Published online: August 28, 2015
Processing time: 215 Days and 18.2 Hours
Abstract

The study of the small bowel (SB) has always been challenging both for clinicians and radiologist. It is a long and tortuous tube that can be affected by various pathologies whose signs and symptoms are usually non specific and can mimic other acute abdominal disorders. For these reasons, imaging plays a central role in the diagnosis of the different pathological conditions that can occur. They are important also in the management and follow up of chronic diseases. We expose and evaluate all the radiological methods that are now available for the study of the SB with particular emphasis on the technological improvement of cross-sectional imaging, such as computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). These techniques have, infact, highly improved in terms of execution times (fast acquisitions images), patients discomfort and radiation dose, for CT, with consequent reduced biological risks. Moreover, the new post-processing options with multiplanar reconstruction and isotropic images have made significant changes in the evaluation of the exams. Especially MRI scans have been improved by the advent of new sequences, such as diffusion weighted imaging and cine-MRI, parallel imaging and breath-hold sequences and can provide excellent soft-tissue contrast without the use of ionizing radiations.

Keywords: Small bowel imaging; Magnetic resonance; Cross-sectional imaging; Computed tomography; Positron emission tomography-computed tomography

Core tip: The small bowel (SB) has always been a challenging organ for clinical and radiologic evaluation. The purpose of our article is to evaluate all the imaging methods now available for the study of the SB with particular emphasis on the technological improvement of cross-sectional imaging.