• Rainer Röttgen, Thomas Grandke, Christian Grieser, Lukas Lehmkuhl, Bernd Hamm, and Lutz Lüdemann.
• Klinik für Strahlenheilkunde, Charité Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Augustenburger Platz 1, 13353 Berlin, Germany. rainer.roettgen@charite.de
• Clin Imaging. 2010 Jan 1; 34 (1): 29-35.

PurposeTo investigate the feasibility of determining local inflammatory activity of Crohn's disease by measurement of bowel wall perfusion kinetics using contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).Material And MethodsTwenty-six patients with histologically proven Crohn's disease who underwent magnetic resonance (MR) enteroclysis at 1.5 T were included in this retrospective study. Over 109 s, 150 images were acquired with a fat-saturated coronal T1-weighted 2D gradient echo sequence (TR, 9 ms; TE, 1.5 ms) during intravenous contrast administration by means of a pump (Magnevist, 0.2 ml/kg, flow 3 ml/s). On each image, signal intensity was measured in a region of interest placed in an area of maximum thickening of the inflamed bowel wall. Enhancement kinetics were correlated with the endoscopically determined severity of inflammatory activity (on a scale of 0-3).ResultsThe slope of the contrast enhancement curve significantly correlated with local inflammatory activity determined by endoscopy (R=0.594, P=.007). No significant correlation was found for area under the curve and peak maximum (R=0.411, P=.08 and R=0.334, P=.15, respectively).ConclusionDetermination of the perfusion kinetics of the bowel wall by MRI enables quantitative evaluation of local inflammatory activity in patients with Crohn's disease.Copyright 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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