Non Invasive Characterization of Pediatric Inflammatory Bowel Diseases Using Multispectral Optoacoustic Tomography

Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) play a major role in child and adolescent medicine. 25 % of patients with IBD are younger than 18 years of age at diagnosis and 25 % of those are even younger than 10 years of age at disease onset. The incidence of IBD in children and adolescents is 5-11/100 000 in Germany. IBD comprises mainly two entities, namely Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC). Patients with CD develop chronic and intermittent transmural inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract, which manifests with symptoms like diarrhea, hematochezia, abdominal pain, fatigue and malnutrition. This often results in weight loss and an increased risk of numerous complications such as the development of fistulas, perforations and intestinal strictures. In addition, growth disturbances and delayed onset of puberty are more frequent. Overall, the course of the disease can only be compared between children and adults to a very limited extent, as the disease often progresses more rapidly and severely in children. Accordingly, the procedure and recommendations for children with CD differ from those of adults. In addition to clinical scores, laboratory chemical parameters (blood count, CrP, calprotectin) and imaging diagnostics (endoscopy, ultrasound, MRT) are available to assess disease activity. However, the latter are only of limited use for routine monitoring due to their invasiveness, the need for sedation and the use of contrast agents. Multispectral Optoacoustic Tomograph (MSOT) on the other hand allows, comparable to sonography, a non-invasive, quantitative imaging of the composition of target tissues in children without sedation. Previous studies have shown that the quantitative determination of hemoglobin provides information on blood flow and inflammatory activity in the bowel of adult patients with Crohn's disease. In this pilot study, the intestinal wall of children will be characterized by MSOT to differentiate between CD, UC, and unclassified inflammatory bowel disease (U-IBD) and to quantify changes and correlate them with routine parameters. This could lead to a new possibility of non-invasive evaluation of disease forms and activity comparable to previous findings in adult patients with CD.