Confocal laser endomicroscopy for the assessment of the mucosal healing process in Crohn's colitis and ulcerative colitis

Introduction: Mucosal healing (MH) is the main goal in the treatment of IBD. Monitoring of MH is important in evaluating the therapy response and the course of disease. By contrast to the macroscopic scores provided by conventional endoscopy in MH assessment, the analysis of the mucosal microstructure using confocal laser endomicroscopy (CLE) might give new insights into MH during therapy and define more precisely MH in Crohn's colitis (CC) and ulcerative colitis (UC). Aims & methods: The aim was to investigate the utility of CLE for assessing microscopic mucosal changes before and after the start of anti-TNF al…