To prospectively evaluate the performance of diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) to monitor bowel inflammation after medical therapy for Crohn's disease (CD).
Before and following 1-2 years of medical therapy, between October 2012 and May 2015, 18 randomly selected adult CD patients (male:female, 13:5; mean age ± SD, 25.8 ± 7.9 years at the time of enrollment) prospectively underwent MR enterography (MRE) including DWI (b = 900 s/mm
ΔADC significantly differed between improved (i.e., complete remission and reduced inflammation) and unimproved (i.e., unchanged or increased inflammation) lesions: mean ± SD (× 10
DWI is potentially a feasible tool to monitor quantitatively and qualitatively bowel inflammation of CD after medical treatment.