Quantified motility assessment in paediatric inflammatory bowel disease: a multi-reader study

Area of Science:

• Gastroenterology
• Medical Imaging
• Pediatric Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Background:

• Quantitative bowel motility via magnetic resonance enterography (MRE) shows potential as an inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) biomarker.
• Experienced readers have demonstrated its utility in research settings.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the agreement among non-experienced readers for quantified bowel motility measurements.
• To assess the reliability of MRE-derived motility metrics in pediatric IBD.

Main Methods:

• Retrospective analysis of MREs from pediatric IBD patients (<18 years).
• Quantified motility software used to analyze cine images from two MREs.
• Inter-reader agreement assessed using Bland-Altman analysis and percentage agreement for motility index changes.

Main Results:

• Fair to excellent agreement in the direction of motility change was observed.
• Junior readers agreed with experienced readers on motility change direction 73-84% of the time.
• Senior readers showed 67-85% agreement with experienced readers, with acceptable limits of agreement for motility index change.

Conclusions:

• Quantified bowel motility measurements in pediatric IBD are reliable across readers with varying experience levels.
• This supports the potential of MRE-based motility assessment as a reproducible biomarker in pediatric IBD management.