Evaluation of indium scintigraphy in patients with active inflammatory bowel disease.

Recent reports have indicated a possible role for 111Indium leucocyte scintigraphy in the management of patients with acute inflammatory bowel disease. Our experience with this technique in 15 patients (nine with ulcerative colitis, six with Crohn's disease) is described. Perfect agreement was not obtained between scintigraphic appearances and other conventional means in the assessment of extent of disease. Good correlation, however, was found between disease activity and recovery of labelled leucocytes in the faeces. While this latter finding could be used as an objective means of assessing response to therapy, it is concluded that conventional indium scintigraphy, using indium oxine-labelling of mixed leucocytes, is insufficiently reliable to replace usual methods for determining extent of disease in patients with inflammatory bowel disease.