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Background: Contrast-enhanced MRI is often used for diagnosis and follow-up of children with inflammatory bowel disease., Objective: To compare the accuracy of diffusion-weighted MRI (DWI) to contrast-enhanced MRI in children with known or suspected inflammatory bowel disease., Materials and Methods: This retrospective, consecutive study included 55 children. We used ileo-colonoscopy and histology as the reference standard from the terminal ileum to the rectum, and contrast-enhanced MRI as the reference standard proximal to the terminal ileum. DWI and contrast-enhanced MRI sequences were independently reviewed and compared per patient and per segment to these reference standards and to the follow-up for each child., Results: We obtained endoscopic data for 340/385 colonic and ileal segments (88%). The rate of agreement per segment between DWI and endoscopy was 64%, and the rate of agreement between contrast-enhanced MRI and endoscopy was 59%. Per patient, sensitivity and specificity of bowel wall abnormalities as compared to the endoscopy were 87% and 100% for DWI, and 70% and 100% for contrast-enhanced MRI, respectively. Positive and negative predictive values were, respectively, 100% and 57% for DWI, and 96% and 41% for contrast-enhanced MRI. The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value and accuracy of DWI compare to contrast-enhanced MRI in the segments proximal to the terminal ileum were 90%, 98%, 90%, 98% and 96%, respectively., Conclusion: The diagnostic performance of DWI is competitive to that of contrast-enhanced MRI in children with known or suspected inflammatory bowel disease.

Approximately one fourth of cases of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) occur during childhood and children are more prone than their adult counterparts to have severe disease at presentation. To investigate these diseases MR imaging is no longer an emerging tool. Numerous reviews and articles have been published on this topic underlying the advances of imaging but also the complexity and the financial impact on management of such diseases. In children it seems reasonable to consider US as the first imaging examination to perform, especially when the diagnosis of IBD is unknown. However, we believe that recent and future technical progress, especially the ability of MR to display reproducible data, and the need for gold standard evaluation of new medical therapies will increase the role of MR enterography.