Small Bowel Tumors

Abstract

This article describes small bowel disorders, which are among the most difficult to evaluate endoscopically because of the long length and multiple complex looped configuration of the small bowel. The authors discuss current standard diagnostic modalities, like small bowel follow-through and push enteroscopy (PE), and further compare them with wireless capsule endoscopy (WCE). WCE has the potential to visualize the entire small bowel, including areas not reached by traditional endoscopy. Its sensitivity has been shown to be superior to PE and small bowel follow-through in regard to diagnosing patients who have obscure GI bleeding, but the authors believe that as more material is published, capsule endoscopy likely will be confirmed to be the diagnostic procedure of choice in patients with suspected small bowel tumors. © 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.