Real-time Endoscopy-Guided Measurement of Rectal Mucosal Admittance Is a Novel and Safe Method for Predicting Ulcerative Colitis Relapse.

Background: There are known associations between inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and changes in mucosal paracellular permeability. We recently developed a novel catheter that can measure mucosal admittance (MA).

Methods: Patients with ulcerative colitis (UC) in clinical remission underwent real-time MA measurement during colonoscopy between June 2014 and July 2015 and were prospectively followed. MA measures were taken from normal-appearing mucosa using the Tissue Conductance Meter (TCM). We examined relationships between mucosal admittance, clinical parameters at the time of MA measurement, and disease relapse during the follow-up period using the Cox proportional hazards model.

Results: We measured baseline MA in 54 patients with UC during remission, with no complications. Of these, 23 patients relapsed during the subsequent follow-up period, at a median of 25.8 ± 7.6 months. Rectal MA was the only predictor of disease relapse in multivariate analysis (P = 0.027). The optimal rectal MA cutoff value for relapse was 781.0 (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve, 0.712), and in patients who showed lower than normal cutoff values, there was a significantly higher likelihood of relapse compared with other patients (log-rank test, P < 0.001).

Conclusions: High rectal MA measured by TCM is associated with long-term sustained remission. Real-time rectal MA measurement using a novel endoscopy-guided catheter could be a safe and useful means of predicting prognosis for patients with UC in remission.