La valutazione medico-legale delle malattie dell’apparato digerente integrata da accertamenti specialistici non invasivi

Abstract

Inflammatory Bowel Diseases (IBD) present a symptomatology characterised by periods of remission followed by clinical and endoscopic worsening; this makes the assignment of the functional damage for a correct medical-legal evaluation difficult, especially as far as the judgment of “permanency” in taken into consideration. Invasive investigations, such as endoscopic procedures, are not allowed for medical-legal evaluations. So it may prove particularly useful and resolving in such diseases using abdomen echography which, together with some other supplementary tests, allows the gathering of a fundamental quantity of data for the diagnosis, the research for the complications, the definition of the state of activity of the pathology and the follow up of the patients. A reasoned and competent use of the abdomen echography – well-endured, non-invasive and economical – can help in reducing the employment of endoscopic exams or other types of tests otherwise contraindicated, and it represents a precious impletion of the specialist gastroenterological medical examination guiding the forensic doctor to the meditated evaluation of the damage.