Small bowel transit time of capsule endoscopy as a factor for the detection of lesions in potential small bowel bleeding

Clinical features of capsule endoscopy in young adults: A single‐center retrospective study

Background and Aim

Capsule endoscopy (CE) has been used in clinical examination among people of various ages, while few studies exclusively focused on the young. We aimed to explore its clinical features in young adults and those with obscure gastrointestinal bleeding (OGIB).

Methods

A total of 479 young adults aged 18–44 years were analyzed, with median age of 33 years. Primary positive findings of patients were classified into four kinds of lesions, and potential risk of bleeding among patients with OGIB was assessed based on Saurin classification (P0‐2 lesions).

Results

The overall completion rate and diagnostic yield of CE among young adults were 89.77 and 77.04%, respectively. Significant differences were found among overall completion rate/diagnostic yield and inpatient status/CE brand. Positive diagnostic yield among 157 patients with OGIB was 51.59% (P1‐2 lesions), and the significant risk of bleeding was 37.04% (P2 lesions). Among patients with OGIB in which 134 patients with a total of 216 lesions, ulceration was the commonest P2 lesions, followed by angioectasia and telangiectasia. Inpatient rate, completion rate, and diagnostic yield were higher among patients with overt OGIB, and disease categories of overt OGIB were different compared with occult OGIB.

Conclusion

CE is an optimal tool for discovering lesions in young adults and could play a role in evaluating the bleeding risk of young adults with OGIB.

Small-bowel transit time in capsule endoscopy: a determinant factor for the diagnosis of small-bowel bleeding

BACKGROUND

small-bowel capsule endoscopy (SBCE) is the gold standard for the study of small-bowel bleeding (SBB). Recent studies suggest that longer small-bowel transit times (SBTT) may be associated with a higher diagnostic yield of SBCE.

AIM

the aim of the study was to investigate if longer SBTT is a predictive factor of positive findings on SBCE in a population that underwent SBCE for suspected SBB.

METHODS

a retrospective single-center study including consecutive SBCEs between May 2012 and May 2019, due to suspected SBB. A positive SBCE was considered in the presence of lesions with high bleeding potential such as ulcers, angioectasias, and tumors (P2 lesions, according to the Saurin classification).

RESULTS

we included 372 patients, 65.9 % female, with a median age of 67 (IQR: 19-97) years. We observed that patients with P2 lesions (n = 131; 35.2 %) in SBCE exhibited a longer SBTT (p = 0.01), were older (p < 0.001), were more frequently male (p = 0.019), and suffered more frequently from arterial blood hypertension (p = 0.011), diabetes (p = 0.042), chronic kidney disease (p = 0.003), and heart failure (p = 0.001). In the logistic analysis, significant predictive factors for the presence of P2 lesions included age (OR: 1.027; 95 % CI: 1.009-1.045; p = 0.004), SBTT (OR: 1.002; 95 % CI: 1.001-1.005; p = 0.029), and male gender (OR: 1.588; 95 % CI: 1.001-2.534; p = 0.049).

CONCLUSIONS

patients with longer SBTT had higher rates of lesions with high bleeding potential (P2). SBTT along with previously well-defined factors such as age and male gender were the only independent predictive factors for the presence of P2 lesions. These findings may suggest that a slower passage of the capsule through the small bowel may allow a better diagnostic yield for significant lesions.