Ulcerative Colitis

But now doctors at the University of Virginia Health System have successfully tested in animals a new, painless, non-invasive technique to catch IBD early.

Inflammatory bowel disease affects about 600,000 Americans every year and the disease can be both painful and debilitating.

This technique uses tiny microbubbles developed at UVa that are about the size of a red blood cell.

Along with common ultrasound, the microbubbles measure the severity and extent of inflammation in the intestine.

The outside lipid shell of these tiny microbubbles is coated with antibodies to specific molecules that are over-expressed during intestinal inflammation.

The tiny bubbles then attach themselves to these molecules and are seen using ultrasound, allowing inflammation to be evaluated.

Tests in mice with spontaneous Crohn's disease showed that the severity and extent of disease correlated to increased video intensity of the microbubbles in ultrasound images.

"This technology has the potential to be used in a clinical setting to non-invasively detect intestinal inflammation, as well as monitor disease severity during the course and treatment of IBD," said Theresa T.

Pizarro, Ph.D., associate professor of gastroenterology at UVa and lead author of a paper describing the imagining technique in the January 2006 issue of the journal Gastroenterolo...

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