Ulcerative Colitis Intestinal Ultrasound Index

Clinical indication

Sonographic disease activity in ulcerative colitis, from bowel wall thickness, colour Doppler signal, haustration and fat wrapping, developed against the Mayo endoscopic subscore.

What is scored

The calculator collects 4 items:

• Bowel wall thickness, most affected segment
• Colour Doppler signal
• Haustrations
• Fat wrapping

Any item left blank stops the score being calculated — an incomplete form never reports as remission.

Interpretation

Bands as implemented in IBD Care. A band is a description of the score, not an instruction.

Limitations

The development paper states the index was undergoing prospective validation, so it should be read as a developed-but-not-fully-validated instrument. The rectum was excluded from the development dataset. Interobserver agreement was substantial for wall thickness but weaker for haustration.

References

• Bots S, Nylund K, Lowenberg M, Gecse K, D'Haens G. Intestinal Ultrasound to Assess Disease Activity in Ulcerative Colitis: Development of a novel UC-Ultrasound Index. J Crohns Colitis 2021;15:1264-71. PMID 33411887. doi:10.1093/ecco-jcc/jjab002

Content last reviewed 2026-10-10. References were resolved against PubMed, a service of the US National Library of Medicine, which does not endorse this site.

Use the calculator

Ulcerative Colitis Intestinal Ultrasound Index is implemented as an interactive calculator in IBD Care, with its full guidance and scoring bands.