Reply to comment on "Ultrasonographic scores for ileal Crohn's disease assessment: better, worse or the same as contrast­enhanced ultrasound?

We read the comments by Nylund K et al. regarding our paper "Ultrasonographic scores for ileal Crohn's disease assessment: Better, worse or the same as contrast­enhanced ultrasound?". Intestinal ultrasound has become one of the most valuable developments in the past decade, a non-invasive, well-tolerated exam, with an easy repeatability, and absence of sedation, ionizing radiation, or preparation. Particularly for inflammatory bowel disease, where there is a lack of agreement of patient's symptoms with disease activity, in an era where the paradigm of mucosal healing is changing to transmural healing, and with the emergence of several therapies leading to repeated imaging surveillance, it is essential to highlight the role of intestinal ultrasound. Although intestinal ultrasound is an increasingly used tool to monitor inflammatory bowel disease activity, there is no widely accepted reproducible activity index, since the methodology for the development of the scores was shown to be insufficient in most studies and none have been adequately validated (Bots et al., J Crohns Colitis 12:920-9, 2018). In our study, we showed that the contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) peak enhancement derived from the time-intensity curve (TIC) is a promising non-invasive emerging method with a good accuracy to correlate clinical and endoscopic activity in the terminal ileum, superior to intestinal ultrasound scores relying on bowel wall thickness and colour Doppler.

Small Bowel CLEansing Assessment and Report (SB-CLEAR): Standardizing bowel preparation report in capsule endoscopy.

BACKGROUND AND AIM: Small-bowel (SB) cleansing is crucial to assess the reliability of capsule endoscopy (CE) findings. However, the presence of multiple grading systems is hampering their use in clinical practice. In 2020, Colon CLeansing Assessment and Report (CC-CLEAR) was created and validated. We sought to develop and validate a new score for the evaluation of the SB cleansing, adapted from CC-CLEAR, aiming to standardize CE reporting regarding the quality of preparation. METHODS: The new grading score, SB CLeansing Assessment and Report (SB-CLEAR), divided the SB into three tertiles, each being scored depending on the percentage of visualized mucosa (0, < 50%; 1, 50%-75%; 2, > 75%; 3, > 90%). The overall classification was a sum of each segment score, graded between excellent, good, and inadequate (0-5). Any segment scoring ≤1 resulted in inadequate overall classification. CE videos were prospectively evaluated by two experienced CE readers blinded to each other. RESULTS: We included 52 CEs, 41(78.8%) female, with a mean age of 57.9 ± 17.9 years. Inter-observer agreement was very strong for each tertile (first: r = 0.863; second: r = 0.865; third: r = 0.861; P < 0.001), which resulted in overall excellent correlation when considering the quality of preparation in all tertiles (r = 0.940; P < 0.001). By applying final classifications of "inadequate," "good," and "excellent," correlation between observers was also very strong (r = 0.875; P < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: SB-CLEAR is an innovative and reproducible grading score for evaluation of SB preparation quality in CE, with overall excellent inter-observer agreement. Along with CC-CLEAR, this may become a valuable tool to uniformize reporting of bowel preparation quality in CE.

Colon Capsule CLEansing Assessment and Report (CC-CLEAR): a new approach for evaluation of the quality of bowel preparation in capsule colonoscopy.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Current colon capsule (CC) cleansing grading scales rely on subjective parameters and lack proper interobserver agreement. We should strive for higher intra- and interobserver agreement for the evaluation of the cleansing quality of CCs. Here we sought to validate a new grading scale for the evaluation of CC cleansing. METHODS: For the new grading scale, named Colon Capsule CLEansing Assessment and Report (CC-CLEAR), the colon was divided in 3 segments: right-sided, transverse, and left-sided colon. Each segment was scored according to an estimation of the percentage of visualized mucosa (0, <50%; 1, 50%-75%; 2, >75%; 3, >90%). The overall cleansing classification was a sum of each segment score, grading between excellent (8-9), good (6-7), and inadequate (0-5). Any segment scoring ≤1 resulted in inadequate overall classification. Videos were reviewed and scored using CC-CLEAR and the Leighton-Rex grading scale by 2 experienced operators blinded to each other. Kendall's coefficient evaluated inter- and intraobserver agreement. RESULTS: We included 58 consecutive CCs, corresponding to 75.9% women, with a mean age of 65 years. Overall cleansing CC-CLEAR classifications were as follows: reader A, 22.4% (n = 13) excellent, 31% (n = 18) good, and 46.5% (n = 27) inadequate; and reader B, 24.1% (n = 14) excellent, 22.4% (n = 13) good, and 53.4% (n = 31) inadequate. CC-CLEAR interobserver agreement was superior to the Leighton-Rex scale (Kendall's W .911 vs .806, respectively; P < .01). The intraobserver agreement for CC-CLEAR was excellent for both readers (P > .01). CONCLUSIONS: CC-CLEAR is a new practical and reliable grading scale for the evaluation of bowel preparation quality using a CC, with excellent inter- and intraobserver agreement.

PillCam COLON 2 in Crohn's disease: A new concept of pan-enteric mucosal healing assessment.

AIM: To evaluate mucosal healing in patients with small bowel plus colonic Crohn's disease (CD) with a single non-invasive examination, by using PillCam COLON 2 (PCC2). METHODS: Patients with non-stricturing nonpenetrating small bowel plus colonic CD in sustained corticosteroid-free remission were included. At diagnosis, patients had undergone ileocolonoscopy to identify active CD lesions, such as ulcers and erosions, and small bowel capsule endoscopy to assess the Lewis Score (LS). After ≥ 1 year of follow-up, patients underwent entire gastrointestinal tract evaluation with PCC2. The primary endpoint was assessment of CD mucosal healing, defined as no active colonic CD lesions and LS < 135. RESULTS: Twelve patients were included (7 male; mean age: 32 years), and mean follow-up was 38 mo. The majority of patients (83.3%) received immunosuppressive therapy. Three patients (25%) achieved mucosal healing in both the small bowel and the colon, while disease activity was limited to either the small bowel or the colon in 5 patients (42%). It was possible to observe the entire gastrointestinal tract in 10 of the 12 patients (83%) who underwent PCC2. CONCLUSION: Only three patients in sustained corticosteroid-free clinical remission achieved mucosal healing in both the small bowel and the colon, highlighting the limitations of clinical assessment when stratifying disease activity, and the need for pan-enteric endoscopy to guide therapeutic modification.