MR Enterography Better in Detecting Fibrosis in Kids with Crohn’s Disease

MR enterography is better than CT enterography for diagnosing fibrosis in pediatric patients with Crohn’s disease, say researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

Researchers, who presented the study this week at the American Roentgen Ray Society Annual Meeting in Vancouver, Canada, evaluated 23 pediatric patients with Crohn’s disease who had both CT enterography and MR enterography examinations to detect fibrosis or inflammation. The results showed that MR enterography was 77.6 percent accurate in depicting fibrosis, compared with 56.9 percent accuracy by CT enterography. The difference was not so significant when looking for active inflammation. MR enterography detected with 82.1 percent accuracy compared with CT enterography accuracy of 77.6 percent.

“While our study shows that MR enterography is as good or better than CT enterography, CT enterography is faster than MR enterography, less expensive, and more widely available,” said Keith Quencer, MD, on of the study authors.

Currently, CT enterography is the preferred imaging modality used to evaluate Crohn’s disease. However, MR enterography does not use radiation.

“Crohn’s disease is a chronic disease, with patients often requiring frequent imaging studies due to symptom recurrence,” said Quencer. “As we strive to minimize radiation dose, particularly in the pediatric population, MR enterography should be considered.”