Capsule endoscopy in a district general hospital

doi:10.1136/bmj.a905

Published 22 July 2008, doi:10.1136/bmj.a905
Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a905

Letters

Capsule endoscopy

Capsule endoscopy in a district general hospital

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

We recently ran an audit to evaluate the diagnostic yield ofcapsule endoscopy in our hospital.¹ The service is currentlybeing provided by a sole gastroenterologist.

In all, 69 patients had capsule endoscopy over the 34 months:41 women and 28 men , with a mean age of 63 (range 17-91) years.The main indications for capsule endoscopy were iron deficiencyanaemia (46 patients), overt bleeding (12), investigation ofsmall bowel Crohn’s disease (eight), and investigationfor abdominal pain, weight loss, or persistent diarrhoea (three).Complete small bowel examination was achieved in 63 patients.In six patients capsule endoscopy was unsuccessful because ofpoor bowel preparation or gastric retention. The diagnosticyield for all indications was 53.6% (37).

The commonest finding was small bowel angiodysplasia in 18 patients.Other findings included aphthoid ulcers, inflammation, and oedemasuggestive of Crohn’s disease (six patients), localisedsmall bowel erosions (six), erosive gastritis (five), . . . [Full text of this article]

Elmuhtady M Said, staff grade gastroenterologist

¹ Barnsley District General Hospital, Barnsley S75 2EP

drsaid@doctors.org.uk