title: Diffusion-weighted MRI in pediatric inflammatory bowel disease.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Pediatric patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) commonly need repetitive imaging to assess disease activity and complications. Recently, MR enterography has become a first-line radiologic study in children with IBD because of improved image quality, excellent soft-tissue contrast resolution, and lack of ionizing radiation. The purpose of this article is to describe the use of diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) in MR enterography and the evaluation of pediatric IBD.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Several contemporary publications have shown that DWI can be useful for assessing both pediatric and adult patients with IBD as an important adjunct pulse sequence. Specifically, DWI can be used to identify abnormal bowel segments, assess disease inflammatory activity, and detect and characterize a variety of extraintestinal IBD-related manifestations and complications.
authors.affiliation: 1 Department of Radiology, The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, 1400 Pressler St, Unit 1473, Houston, TX 77030.
authors.forename: Ajaykumar C
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: Morani
authors.forename: Ethan A
authors.initials: EA
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.forename: Dhakshina
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Ganeshan
authors.forename: Jonathan R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Dillman
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D038524:Diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007089:Image Enhancement / Q000379:methods*; D015212:Inflammatory Bowel Diseases / Q000473:pathology*; D008297:Male; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity
keywords: MR enterography; diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI); pediatric inflammatory bowel disease (IBD)