Bowel Ultrasound Scan Predicts Corticosteroid Failure in Children With Acute Severe Colitis.

Background And Objective: Acute severe colitis (ASC) is a potentially life-threatening event. Optimal timing for second-line treatment in children is mainly based on the clinical score Pediatric Ulcerative Colitis Activity Index. The aim of our study was to evaluate the potential role of bowel ultrasound scan (BUS) in predicting the need of second-line therapy in ASC.

US, MRCP, CCT and ERCP: a comparative study in 131 patients with suspected biliary obstruction.

Background: Recent years have witnessed a rapid and continuous evolution in the diagnosis of biliary obstructive disease. Traditional methodologies, such as US (ultrasonography), CT (computed tomography), ERCP (endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography) and PTC (percutaneous transhepatic cholangiography), have been supplemented by MRCP (magnetic resonance cholagiopancreatography) and CCT (cholangio computed tomography) The purpose of our study was to compare the reliability of diagnostic US, MR and other imaging techniques in intrinsic biliary obstructive disease.

Material/methods: Between June 1999 and July 2003 we conducted a prospective study on 131 patients--60 males and 71 females--ranging in age from 37 to 79 years, with clinical features of biliary obstructive disease.