As the only certified intestinal ultrasound training center in the United States, Mount Sinai hosted the first International Bowel Ultrasound Group hands-on training in North America in the fall of 2022, launching training for 36 adult and pediatric inflammatory bowel disease specialists. Trainees will bring new skills back to their hospitals, advancing innovative care and research to improve the lives of inflammatory bowel disease patients across the United States and Canada.
Intestinal ultrasound is a non-invasive, point-of-care imaging modality that can monitor disease activity in patients with Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis without the need for bowel preparation or fasting. Through the Henry and Elaine Kaufman Intestinal Ultrasound Program at Mount Sinai, physicians use intestinal ultrasound during routine clinic visits. This enhances shared understanding between patients and their gastroenterologist within minutes and has become an invaluable patient-centric tool at the Susan and Leonard Feinstein Inflammatory Bowel Disease Clinical Center at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai for assessing inflammatory bowel disease treatment response and healing.
Research from the intestinal ultrasound team at Mount Sinai has been presented at numerous national and international conferences highlighting the accuracy of intestinal ultrasound compared to endoscopy for monitoring disease activity. Mount Sinai’s research has also shown how intestinal ultrasound can monitor treatment response earlier and more often than tools such as colonoscopy or magnetic resonance imaging, allowing clinicians to adjust therapies to achieve improved long-term treatment success.
Mount Sinai became the first adult and pediatric inflammatory bowel disease center in the United States certified to use intestinal ultrasound for patient care and research after participating in the International Bowel Ultrasound Group training in Europe. As interest in the use of intestinal ultrasound has grown in the United States and Canada, Mount Sinai recognized the need to develop training here in North America.
Faculty for the course included leading international experts from Europe, Israel, Australia, and Canada as well as six expert faculty instructors from Mount Sinai. Patient volunteers, including 12 children and 20 adults, were an invaluable part of the course as well, allowing learners to understand characteristic features of the disease. After successfully completing the hands-on introductory course, participants need to spend four weeks at Mount Sinai to gain proficiency before using the modality for patient care and research at their institutions.
Mount Sinai plans to train more North American gastroenterologists over the next two years, fostering a shift in inflammatory bowel disease management in the United States that places patients at the forefront by using intestinal ultrasound to provide non-invasive real-time disease activity monitoring, guide treatment decisions, enhance the patient-physician relationship, and improve outcomes.
Gastroenterologists learn ultrasound from international experts, on patient volunteers, at the Susan and Leonard Feinstein Inflammatory Bowel Disease Clinical Center at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
Inflammation in the terminal ileum consistent with moderate to severely active Crohn’s disease seen on intestinal ultrasound, characterized by increased bowel wall thickness and the presence of increased blood flow by color Doppler signal.