Endoscopic severity in ulcerative colitis from three defined descriptors — vascular pattern, bleeding, and erosions and ulcers — with better-defined terms than the Mayo endoscopic subscore.
What is scored
The calculator collects 3 items:
Vascular Pattern
Bleeding Assessment
Erosions and Ulcerations
Any item left blank stops the score being calculated — an incomplete form never reports as remission.
Interpretation
0 - 1
Endoscopic Remission
2 - 4
Mild
5 - 6
Moderate
7 - 8
Severe
Bands as implemented in IBD Care. A band is a description of the score, not an instruction.
Limitations
Scores the most severely affected segment, so it does not describe disease extent. Interobserver agreement is moderate, and the bleeding descriptor is the least reliable of the three. The development paper itself stated that validity and responsiveness needed further testing, which the 2013 paper then addressed.
References
Travis SP, Schnell D, Krzeski P, Abreu MT, Altman DG, Colombel JF, et al. Developing an instrument to assess the endoscopic severity of ulcerative colitis: the Ulcerative Colitis Endoscopic Index of Severity (UCEIS). Gut 2012;61:535-42. PMID 21997563. doi:10.1136/gutjnl-2011-300486
Travis SP, Schnell D, Krzeski P, Abreu MT, Altman DG, Colombel JF, et al. Reliability and initial validation of the ulcerative colitis endoscopic index of severity. Gastroenterology 2013;145:987-95. PMID 23891974. doi:10.1053/j.gastro.2013.07.024
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 Endoscopic Index of Severity is implemented as an interactive calculator in IBD Care, with its full guidance and scoring bands.