CT of complicated inflammatory bowel disease in children.

Most children with inflammatory bowel disease do not need a CT scan. However, when the course becomes complicated it often is necessary to evaluate what is happening outside the bowel lumen. CT is the examination of choice for that evaluation. With CT, the presence and extent of an abscess can be diagnosed and followed; fistulae can be detected; bowel wall and mesenteric thickening can generally be differentiated from an abscess.