Relationship of Bowel MR Imaging to Health-related Quality of Life Measures in Newly Diagnosed Pediatric Small Bowel Crohn Disease.

Purpose To determine if utility measures of health-related quality of life (HRQOL) in pediatric small bowel Crohn disease (a) change in response to infliximab therapy, (b) correlate with proxy parent or guardian assessments, and (c) correlate with magnetic resonance (MR) imaging and laboratory markers of intestinal active inflammation. Materials and Methods This prospective single-center cohort study was approved by the institutional review board and was compliant with HIPAA. Parental informed consent and subject assent were obtained from all study participants. Twenty-six children with newly diagnosed small bowel Crohn disease receiving infliximab therapy were prospectively enrolled. All subjects underwent measurement of HRQOL utilities (visual analog scale [VAS], time trade-off [TTO], and standard gamble [SG]), MR enterography, and laboratory assessment at baseline and 6 months later. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used to compare paired nonparametric data; Spearman correlation (ρ) was used to assess bivariate relationships. Results The median VAS score was 47.5 (interquartile range [IQR]: 20.0-52.2) before infliximab therapy and 83.0 (IQR: 62.0-92.0) at follow-up (P = .0003). There was positive correlation between subject and parent or guardian change in VAS score between baseline and follow-up (ρ = 0.71; P = .0006). The authors identified significant negative correlations between VAS score and MR imaging bowel wall arterial phase enhancement after contrast material administration at baseline (ρ = -0.57, P = .0032) as well as between change in VAS score and change in bowel wall enhancement in the arterial phase at contrast-enhanced MR imaging over time (ρ = -0.51, P = .02). No correlations between VAS score and laboratory inflammatory markers were identified. Conclusion VAS assessment of HRQOL changes over time in response to infliximab therapy in children with small bowel Crohn disease. There are statistically significant correlations between child-reported VAS score and (a) the degree of bowel wall enhancement in the arterial phase at contrast-enhanced MR imaging and (b) parent or guardian assessment. (©) RSNA, 2016 Online supplemental material is available for this article.