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Background: Crohn's colitis, frequently accompanied by stenosis or narrowing, can be difficult to assess through conventional methods. We evaluated the usefulness of virtual computed tomographic colonography (CTC) for the detection of colonic lesions due to Crohn's disease.Methods: Forty-two lesions in 33 patients with Crohn's disease were examined by CTC and barium enema (BE). Twenty-two patients also were examined by colonoscopy (CS). The visualization ability of CTC was compared with those of the other two methods.Results: In the visualization of elevated lesions, there was no significant difference between CTC and BE (18 of 20, p = 0.487) or between CTC and CS (15 of 16, p = 0.99); however, ulcerative lesions were less often visualized by CTC. However, CTC enabled identification of serious lesions in the colon proximal to the stenosis in nine patients and was superior to BE and CS in terms of its ability to visualize the proximal site of the stenosis (p = 0.003).Conclusion: CTC is clinically useful for the evaluation of Crohn's colitis, especially those with stenotic lesions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a list of the authors who have contributed in the November 2003 issue of the journal "Abdom Imaging." Some of the authors enlisted are: B. Adapinar; A.M. Agildere; X. Aguirre; Y.H. Auh; Y. Baba; R. Barone; R.F. Bechtold; A. Beer; N. Bejarano; E. Belgrano; M. F. Bellin; V. Berkane; J. Bernheim; D. Bhasin; B.A. Birnbam; A. Blandino; Oliva Borges; M.G. Brizi; S. Bucci; A. Cannella; C. Caron; and L.R. Carucci.

Portal hypertension is a relatively uncommon pathologic condition in children and young adults in contrast with older adults. The aim of this study is to evaluate the utility of sonography and color Doppler sonography in the diagnosis of portal hypertension in children and young patients and to evaluate the sonographic pattern of each disease. We reviewed 25 such patients who were younger than 30 years old and obtained the following sonographic findings: (1) liver cirrhosis: (a) multiple intrahepatic venovenous shunts in patients with primary Budd-Chiari syndrome and (b) intrahepatic vascular narrowing and nodular coarse parenchymal texture, with multiple very-high-echo spots along the portal vein in patients with Wilson disease; (2) congenital hepatic fibrosis: marked and developed collaterals, wide periportal echogenic band, and a heterogeneous parenchymal texture comprised of multiple high echoes but without portal thrombus; and (3) extrahepatic portal thrombosis: invisible portal lumen except as an echogenic band. Sonography and color Doppler sonography are very useful in diagnosing these portal hypertensive diseases. However, there are no specific sonographic findings, and the role of sonography is limited to follow-up observation of associated secondary hepatobiliary changes in patients with congenital biliary atresia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Four cases of small abdominal aneurysms were assessed by color Doppler ultrasonography. The aneurysms demonstrated interesting and highly complicated internal hemodynamics, including a swirling blood flow pattern and/or a color mosaic pattern. These findings suggested the usefulness of color Doppler ultrasonography for obtaining details on internal hemodynamics, which cannot be obtained with other modalities, such as angiography or computed tomography (CT). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]