Small Bowel Endoscopy Diagnostic Yield and Reasons of Obscure GI Bleeding in Chinese Patients

Aim. To investigate the diagnostic yield and etiologies of patients with obscure gastrointestinal bleeding (OGIB) using capsule endoscopy (CE) or double-balloon enteroscopy (DBE). Method. We studied the data of 532 consecutive patients with OGIB that were referred to Xinqiao Hospital in Chongqing from December 2005 to January 2012. A lesion that was believed to be the source of the bleeding (ulceration, mass lesion, vascular lesion, visible blood, inflammation, or others) was considered to be a positive finding. We analyzed the diagnostic yield of CE and SBE and the etiologies of OGIB. Result. CE and SBE have similar diagnostic yields, at 71.9% (196/231) and 71.8% (251/304), respectively. The most common etiology was erosions/ulceration (27.1%) followed by mass lesion (19.4%) and angiodysplastic/vascular lesions (13.9%). By stratified analysis, we found that erosions/ulceration (27.1%) was the most common etiology for the 21–40-year age group. Mass lesion was the most common etiology in the 41–60-year age group. However, in the >60 years age group, angiodysplastic/vascular lesions were significantly increased compared with the other groups, even though erosions/ulceration was most common. Conclusion. In this study, we found that CE and SBE have similar diagnostic yields and erosions/ulceration was the most common reason for OGIB, followed by mass lesion and angiodysplasias.