Magnetic resonance enterography in Crohn’s disease patients: current state of the art and future perspectives

Introduction: Crohn’s disease (CD) is a major concern due to relatively high incidence and major complications like stricture or fistulas, often requiring surgical treatment. In recent years, magnetic resonance enterography (MRE) became a popular method of diagnosis and disease surveillance. The purpose of this review is to summarize and discuss the major and most recent advances in various aspects of MRE usage in diagnosong Crohn’s disease, and to discuss advances in technique, disease activity monitoring and response to treatment. Methods: A literature search was performed and relevant publications were included, with emphasis on articles from the past decade. Areas covered: In this review we have presented articles with major advances in the field of MRE of CD patients such as proper sequence selection, recent advances in scoring of disease activity, differentiation between inflammation and fibrosis, response to treatment and technological advances such as the use of AI. Expert opinion: The main goal in improving MRE performance will be sequence selection aimed at differenting between inflammation and stricture while shortening the study length adjusted to patient compliance, and developing a standardized scoring system for MRE reporting assisted by artificial intelligence.