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. 2024 Nov 6;13(22):6669. doi: 10.3390/jcm13226669

Table 1.

Radiological findings evaluated in CT/MR-E.

Type of Radiological Examination MR Enterography or Abdomen CT or CT Enterography
Site of pathological loops Proximal jejunum, distal jejunum, proximal ileum, distal ileum, last ileal loop, appendix, ascending colon, transverse colon, descending colon, sigmoid colon, and rectum
Number of small-bowel pathological loops Counting as pathological any segment with radiological signs of CD separated from another lesion by a normal intestinal loop
Characteristics of small-bowel pathological loops

  • Mural thickening: a wall thickness of more than 3 mm;

  • Mucosal ulcers: deep depressions in the mucosal surface;

  • Bowel wall enhancement: stratified in the active inflammatory subtype (intense enhancement of the mucosa and serosa and low signal intensity in the submucosa) or homogeneous in the fibrostenotic subtype;

  • Halo fatty sign: the presence of fatty signals in the submucosa;

  • Engorgement of the vasa recta: hyperemia of the near mesentery;

  • Stenosis: upstream dilatation with a loop caliber greater than 2 cm;

  • Fibrofatty proliferation: excess of mesenteric fat;

  • Sinus tracts: wall defects that extend outside the intestinal wall but have no connection to an epithelialized structure, such as adjacent organs or skin;

  • Fistulas: communication with a near structure, e.g., entero-enteric, entero-colic, entero-cutaneous, and entero-vesicular fistulas;

  • Abscesses: capsulated fluid collection near pathological loop, which could contain air;

  • Lymph node enlargement: a short diameter of greater than 1 cm;

  • Others: involvement of other structures, such as the colon, appendix, genital organs, etc.;

  • In patients studied by MRI: bowel wall edema (a hyperintense signal in the wall compared with the skeletal muscle in T2-weighted sequences) and diffusion restriction in DWI (diffusion weighted imaging) sequences.
Length of each small-bowel pathological loop

  • In the presence of more than one pathological loop: the loop with greater extension;

  • In the presence of more than one loop affected by pathology: the sum of the extension of the intestinal loops in which these segments are evident.
Type of disease

  • Active inflammatory;

  • Fistulizing;

  • Fibrostenotic.