Wall thickening: Meaning in a Radiology Report

Also written as: mural thickening, thickened wall, bowel wall thickening, bladder wall thickening

Wall thickening means the wall of a hollow organ, such as the bowel, bladder or gallbladder, looks thicker than usual on a scan.

What it means

Hollow organs such as the stomach, bowel, bladder and gallbladder have walls only a few millimeters thick. The report says wall thickening when a wall looks thicker than expected. A common reason is that the organ was not full during the scan. A normal wall then looks bunched up and thicker. Inflammation or infection can also swell a wall, and less often a growth thickens it.

When it matters

Thickening in an organ that was half empty is often not real, and it may be rechecked when the organ is full. Long, even thickening often goes with inflammation, while a short, lumpy or one-sided area gets a closer look. Next steps depend on your symptoms and may include blood or stool tests, a repeat ultrasound, or a camera test of the bowel or bladder.

Questions to ask your doctor

Could the thickening be because the organ was not full during the scan?
Is the thickening even and long, or short and in one spot?
Do I need a camera test or a repeat scan to check it?

General information, not medical advice. What a finding means for you depends on your symptoms, your history and the images themselves, so talk your results through with a doctor.