Small Bowel Endoscopy

Video capsule endoscopy continues to be the major focus in papers dealing with diagnostic small-bowel endoscopy. Although capsule endoscopy is used for a variety of indications, its major field of application is still obscure bleeding from the small intestine, where it can be regarded as a first-line test. There is increasing evidence that capsule endoscopy for suspected Crohn's disease may be diagnostic in individual cases after inconclusive conventional tests. Push enteroscopy is the clinical reality for biopsy and treatment in the proximal small bowel, whereas intraoperative enteroscopy is used for distal or diffuse small-intestinal disorders. Further reports on double-balloon enteroscopy suggest that this method may be able to replace at least intraoperative enteroscopy in many circumstances. The availability of specific antibody tests for celiac disease is leading to recurrent interest in endoscopy and histology, showing that villous atrophy and lymphocytic infiltrates are typical, but not specific, findings.