Doppler enhancement after intravenous levovist injection in Crohn's disease

Although transabdominal bowel sonography (TABS) has been proposed as a reliable tool to assess increased bowel wall thickness (BWT), the most common sonographic pattern in patients with Crohn's disease (CD), its accuracy is limited in the diagnosis of CD. We therefore tried to assess whether color Doppler enhancement with Levovist, a galactose‐based intravenous sonographic contrast agent able to enhance the arterial Doppler signal, increases TABS accuracy. Thirty‐one patients with ileal CD, diagnosed by endoscopy and enteroclysis, and 20 healthy volunteers were examined with conventional TABS. Color Doppler of the intramural enteric vessels was then performed before and after intravenous injection of Levovist. Twenty‐two CD patients had a BWT >4 mm, and 16 of them presented with active disease. Two of the remaining nine CD patients, all with BWT