F-18 FDG-PET/MR Enterography aids Crohn’s Disease Treatment Monitoring

F-18 FDG-PET/MR enterography may be a useful tool for assessing responses to treatment in newly diagnosed patients with small bowel Crohn’s disease, researchers in Finland have reported.

The finding comes from a study where newly diagnosed patients underwent PET/MRE scans at baseline and again three months after starting standard treatments, according to lead author Juho Mattila, MD, a gastroenterologist at Turku University Hospital, and his colleagues.

“These findings further support the potential of F-18 FDG-PET-MRE as a tool for evaluating intestinal inflammation in Crohn’s disease,” the group wrote. The study was published August 26 in the European Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging.

crohn’s disease is a debilitating chronic inflammatory disease of the gastrointestinal tract,and its global incidence is continuously rising,the authors noted. Diagnosing and monitoring small bowel Crohn’s disease can be challenging, as conventional endoscopy can only partially evaluate it. While combined PET-MRE has shown promise in diagnosing small bowel disease, its role in monitoring treatment response hadn’t been established.

The researchers recruited 35 patients with suspected Crohn’s disease experiencing obscure diarrhea, abdominal pain, and elevated fecal calprotectin levels, or who had a thickened bowel wall or stricture identified on abdominal CT.