Assessment of the process of mucosal healing in ulcerative colitis upon anti-TNF therapy by using confocal laser endomicroscopy

Mucosal healing (MH) is the main goal in the treatment of IBD, incl. ulcerative colitis (UC). Monitoring MH might be important to evaluate therapy response and the course of disease. The endoscopic assessement of MH using white light endoscopy (WLE) comprises many macroscopic scores. The analysis of the mucosal microstructure using confocal laser endomicroscopy (CLE) might give new insights into MH during therapy and define more precisely MH. The aim was to investigate the utility of CLE for assessing microscopical mucosal changings before and after start of infliximab (IFX) therapy in UC and to provide and vali…