Z.One elastography imaging helps determine treatment for Crohn's Disease

A new study shows that the Z.One ultrasound elasticity imaging (elastography) system, from Zonare, can be used to tell whether a patient with Crohn's disease has intestinal fibrosis, which requires surgery, or inflammation, which can be treated with medicine. It suggests that elastography allows doctors to make the distinction between inflammation and fibrosis non-invasively, allowing patients to receive more appropriate and timely care. Patients with intestinal inflammation are usually treated with medicines that suppress their immune system, while patients with fibrosis are treated surgically. Because current diagnostic tests, including CT scans and MRIs, cannot detect the difference between the two conditions, many patients with fibrosis are often initially treated with immune system-suppressing drugs, which are expensive and are unlikely to help. However elastography relies on specially developed software to analyse ultrasound images and to calculate the elasticity of tissue. Inflamed intestinal tissue is softer than fibrotic tissue, which is hard and thick. The next step is a long-term human clinical trial, beginning this winter. The study, led by Ryan Stidham, M.D., clinical lecturer in the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Michigan, was published in the September edition of Gastroenterology (Volume 141, Issue 3, September 2011, Pages 819-826.e).