The Role of Bowel Ultrasound in Detecting Subclinical Inflammation in Pregnant Women with Crohn’s Disease

Background and Aims Maintaining disease remission improves outcomes for pregnant women with Crohn’s disease (CD). As symptoms may correlate poorly with disease activity in the gravid state, we investigated the utility of bowel sonography during pregnancy to assess disease activity. Methods We conducted a prospective observational cohort study of pregnant women with CD undergoing bowel sonography between July 1, 2012, and December 1, 2016. Clinically active disease was defined using standardized clinical indices (Harvey Bradshaw Index >4 for active disease). Sonographic findings were graded as inactive (normal, mild) or active (moderate, severe) by expert radiologists. Results There were 91 pregnancies in 82 CD patients. Symptoms were present in 12 pregnancies; however, eight (67%) had sonographic findings of inactive disease, and escalation of therapy was not initiated. Conversely, sonographically active disease in seven asymptomatic pregnancies resulted in four women escalating therapy. The remaining three women declined escalation of therapy, one had a miscarriage, and the other two women had persistently active disease on sonography and endoscopy at one-year postpartum. Conclusions Bowel ultrasound may detect subclinical inflammation in asymptomatic pregnant women with CD and stratify CD activity in symptomatic patients. Therefore, bowel sonography should be considered as a useful adjunct for the assessment of the pregnant woman with Crohn’s disease.

LO88: Bedside sonography performed by emergency physicians to detect acute appendicitis in the pediatric emergency department

Introduction: Previous studies have suggested that emergency physicians (EP) highly experienced in point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) have similar performance to formal ultrasound to identify appendicitis in children. The aim of this study was to evaluate the ability of EP with various levels of POCUS experience to detect appendicitis with POCUS among children visiting a pediatric ED. Methods: A prospective cohort study was conducted in an urban, tertiary care pediatric ED. Children aged 2 to 18 years old who presented to the ED with acute abdominal pain suggesting appendicitis were included. Patients were excluded if they had a history of appendectomy, hemodynamic instability requiring resuscitation, or were transferred with proven diagnosis of appendicitis. Participating EP had various levels of POCUS experience. Four of the 22 physicians were experienced in bowel sonography (EDU 2 level and higher) while the others were inexperienced in bowel sonography (EDU 1). All the participants received a 1-hour didactical and practical training session on appendix ultrasound. The treating physician performed all POCUS following initial physical exam, before further radiological evaluation. Final outcomes were determined by pathology and/or operative reports for surgical cases, and telephone follow-up at 3 weeks for those who did not have surgery. The primary analysis was a simple proportion for sensitivity and specificity for POCUS. Expecting a sensitivity of 80% based on previous studies, we calculated that a sample size of 50 cases would provide a 95%CI ranging from 66 to 90%. Results: We approached 140 patients, of which 121 accepted to participate and were recruited. After excluding 4 patients for missing POCUS data, 117 patients were included in the primary analysis, of which 51 (44%) had appendicitis. Twenty-two EP performed between 1 and 20 POCUS. The POCUS identified 27 out of 51 appendicitis for a sensitivity of 0.53 (95%CI 0.40-0.66). A negative POCUS was reported for 54 out of 66 patients without appendicitis (specificity of 0.82; 95%CI 0.71-0.89). Conclusion: This study shows limited sensitivity and specificity of POCUS when performed by EP with various level of experience for appendicitis in children. While showing lower sensitivity and specificity than previous studies, the inclusion of a large number of physicians solidifies the external validity of our conclusion.