Inflammatory bowel diseases [IBD], including Crohn’s disease [CD] and ulcerative colitis [UC], are chronic, relapsing and destructive inflammatory disorders of the gastrointestinal tract which can lead to organ damage and impair quality of life. A ‘treat-to-target’ strategy based on activity and severity of disease and response to treatment with close monitoring of intestinal inflammation is recommended. Ileocolonoscopy [CS] is considered the first-line procedure for the assessment of IBD, and magnetic resonance enterography [MRE] is the current standard for assessing the small bowel and complications in CD, and has been proposed as an alternative procedure to CS in the evaluation of both ileo-colonic CD and UC. As that both CS and MRE are invasive and expensive procedures and unappealing to patients, they are unfeasible as frequent and repetitive tools for the monitoring of disease activity. Bowel ultrasound [US] represents a well-tolerated, non-invasive and cost-effective modality to manage IBD patients in clinical practice. Compared to CS and MRE, bowel US has been shown to have the same level of accuracy in assessing and monitoring disease activity and severity of both CD and UC. It can be performed at the point-of-care and therefore allow for real-time clinical decision-making. Point-of-care ultrasound [POCUS] is suggested as the stethoscope of the future and is gaining interest and diffusion in the medical field because it can be used for the bedside examination of patients. The aim of this review is to discuss point-of-care bowel ultrasound [POCBUS] in the management of patients with IBD.

Introduction: The aim of this study was to provide an external validation of bowel ultrasound (US) predictors of activity in ulcerative colitis (UC) and quantitative Milan Ultrasound Criteria (MUC).Methods: Forty‐three consecutive patients with UC (16 in endoscopic remission and 27 with endoscopic activity) underwent bowel US and colonoscopy in a tertiary referral inflammatory bowel disease unit.Results: An MUC score >6.2 discriminated patients with active versus non‐active UC with a sensitivity of 0.85 (95% confidence interval (CI) 0.66–0.96), specificity of 0.94 (95% CI 0.70–0.99) and an area under the curve of 0.902 (95% CI 0.772–0.971) in complete agreement with the derivation study.Conclusion: The external validation of MUC confirms that it is an accurate tool for assessing disease activity in patients with UC.

The impact of COVID-19 on inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) patients under pharmacological immunosuppression is still not clearly understood. We investigated the incidence of COVID-19 and the impact of immunosuppression and containment measures on the risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection in a large IBD cohort, from a multicenter cohort from 21st of February to 30th of June, 2020. Ninety-seven patients with IBD (43 UC, 53 CD, one unclassified IBD) and concomitant COVID-19 over a total of 23,879 patients with IBD were enrolled in the study. The cumulative incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection in patients with IBD vs. the general population was 0.406% and 0.402% cases, respectively. Twenty-three patients (24%) were hospitalized, 21 (22%) had pneumonia, four (4%) were admitted to the Intensive Care Unit, and one patient died. Lethality in our cohort was 1% compared to 9% in the general population. At multivariable analysis, age > 65 years was associated with increased risk of pneumonia and hospitalization (OR 11.6, 95% CI 2.18–62.60; OR 5.1, 95% CI 1.10–23.86, respectively), treatment with corticosteroids increased the risk of hospitalization (OR 7.6, 95% CI 1.48–40.05), whereas monoclonal antibodies were associated with reduced risk of pneumonia and hospitalization (OR 0.1, 95% CI 0.04–0.52; OR 0.3, 95% CI 0.10–0.90, respectively). The risk of COVID-19 in patients with IBD is similar to the general population. National lockdown was effective in preventing infection in our cohort. Advanced age and treatment with corticosteroids impacted negatively on the outcome of COVID-19, whereas monoclonal antibodies did not seem to have a detrimental effect.

Although the landmark of Crohn’s Disease (CD) is the transmural inflammation, mucosal healing (MH), which is assessed by colonoscopy, is currently the gold standard of CD management. Transmural hea...