Role of molecular imaging in the management of patients affected by inflammatory bowel disease: State-of-the-art

AIM: To present the current state-of-the art of molecular imaging in the management of patients affected by inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). METHODS: A systematic review of the literature was performed in order to find important original articles on the role of molecular imaging in the management of patients affected by IBD. The search was updated until February 2016 and limited to articles in English. RESULTS: Fifty-five original articles were included in this review, highlighting the role of single photon emission tomography and positron emission tomography. CONCLUSION: To date, molecular imaging represents a useful tool to detect active disease in IBD. However, the available data need to be validated in prospective multicenter studies on larger patient samples.