Confocal laser endomicroscopy in inflammatory bowel diseases: dream or reality?

Confocal laser endomicroscopy (CLE) is a newly introduced procedure that provide real-time, high-resolution imaging of the gastrointestinal mucosa during endoscopy, allowing the visualization of the pathology of the mucosal epithelium with its cellular and subcellular structures. Recently, the use of CLE was reported in the study of colonic mucosa in patients with inflammatory bowel diseases and in particular in patients affected by ulcerative colitis. CLE has the potential to have an important role in management of inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) patients as it can be used to assess the grading of colitis and in detection of microscopic colitis in endoscopically silent segments. Moreover, CLE can be used in surveillance programs especially in high-risk patients. Finally, CLE has been effectively used in diagnosing a biliary dysplasia/neoplasia in patients with primary sclerosing cholangitis, a pathological condition frequently associated with IBD, with a coexisting bile duct stricture.