Abstract

Background: ulcerative colitis is one type of IBD and its prevalence is increasing
worldwide and in Egypt and the disease itself carries a lot of sufferings and burden
on the patients due to its chronic course and periods of relapse, ulcerative colitis
needs regular follow up and monitoring, the use of ultrasound is being increased in
diagnosis and follow upof IBD patients as a simple, reliable and non-invasive
method.
Patients and methods: this study included a group of 30 ulcerative colitis patients in
different disease activity and tested by the trans abdominal ultrasound to measure
the wall thickness of sigmoid colon as marker of disease inflammation and activity.
Results: the study showed that there is a significant difference in the colonic wall
thickness between different disease activity and showed that ultrasound is sensitive
to detect this change in colonic wall thickness.
Conclusion: ultrasound in the hands of the trained personnel is a valuable tool to
assess the activity of ulcerative colitis by detection of changes in the colonic wall
thickness.