Cure8 research brief
A validated prediction score that reliably rules out clinically significant CT findings could reduce unnecessary CT imaging, radiation exposure, and costs for people with Crohn's disease experiencing acute symptoms.
Clinicians who evaluate acute Crohn's flares (gastroenterologists, emergency physicians, radiologists), researchers interested in diagnostic prediction tools, and adult patients with Crohn's disease facing decisions about abdominal CT.
This retrospective external validation included 202 CT-associated presentations from 195 adults (Jan 2020–Oct 2023).
The original CATCH score discriminated well (AUC 0.892) and had a high negative predictive value (NPV 98.8%) at the prespecified threshold (≥1), meaning a low score was unlikely to miss clinically significant CT findings in this selected cohort.
The authors explored a higher threshold (≥2) which raised specificity but lowered sensitivity, and they tested an extended model (CATCH-AD) adding disease duration and prior intra-abdominal abscess, which showed improved apparent AUC in the same dataset. These exploratory extensions need independent external validation before clinical use.
How to use this: For clinicians and teams ordering abdominal CT in acute Crohn's, the validated CATCH score may help identify patients at low risk of clinically significant CT findings, but decisions should still consider clinical context and local practice. The exploratory model findings are preliminary.
This report is an external validation using retrospective data from patients already selected for abdominal CT; the CATCH-AD exploratory extensions were developed and tested in the same cohort and therefore require independent external validation. The study is presented as an abstract-level article record.
Review the original publication for the complete reporting, methods, and context.
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