[Chronic inflammatory bowel diseases : What contribution can endoscopy make?]

Chronic inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), primarily ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease, are chronic relapsing-remitting inflammations of the gastrointestinal tract. The pathogenesis involves a dysregulation of the intestinal immune system in response to commensal components of the intestinal microbiome. A genetic predisposition forms the foundation for the sustained inflammatory reaction. While treatment approaches in the past focused mainly on the control of clinical symptoms through medication, the results of recent studies indicate that an endoscopically detected remission is superior to mere clinical symptom control in terms of disease progression and prognosis. This review article highlights the importance of endoscopy in the management of IBD, presents established scoring systems for the endoscopic grading of inflammatory activity and outlines in which situations and according to which guidelines endoscopic diagnostics are indicated. Finally, yet importantly applications and algorithms of artificial intelligence as well as advanced technologies in microscopy are increasingly being integrated into endoscopic procedures for patients with IBD and are also discussed in this article.