Transperineal Ultrasound for Assessing and Predicting Response in Hospitalized Patients with a Flare of Ulcerative Colitis

Our aim is to determine how useful transperineal ultrasound is to assess the severity of inflammation in patients with ulcerative colitis. At the moment, there is a small amount of evidence showing it may be just as good as flexible sigmoidoscopy for this purpose. It is a non-invasive test, which means if it is equivalent, it may reduce the need for invasive tests like flexible sigmoidoscopy in the future. Patients admitted to hospital with a flare of ulcerative colitis will be invited to participate. Participants will undergo standard of care treatment and investigation. In addition to this, they will undergo a specialized non-invasive ultrasound test through the perineum (TPUS) as well as the abdomen (TA-IUS). The results from this will be compared to the current standard, flexible sigmoidoscopy. Patients will undergo repeat ultrasound and flexible sigmoidoscopy ten weeks after hospital discharge. We aim to show that transperineal ultrasound is useful for assessing disease severity and predicting the treatment course of hospitalized patients, and may be able to replace flexible sigmoidoscopy in some circumstances.