Clinical usefulness of double balloon enteroscopy in suspected Crohn's disease: the KASID multi-center trial

The recently developed double balloon enteroscopy (DBE) may be useful to evaluate small bowel lesions in patients with suspected Crohn’s disease (CD). We investigated the findings of DBE, small bowel follow-through and abdominal CT in patients with suspected CD who could not be diagnosed with CD using conventional colonoscopy.

Thirty patients (27 males, mean age 32.7±9.27 years) with suspected CD were consecutively enrolled in this study. The main symptoms were abdominal pain, chronic diarrhea, weight loss, obscure bleeding, or anemia. These patients were enrolled from May 2006 to January 2007 at 10 tertiary medical centers participating in the Korean Association for the Study of Intestinal Diseases.

The DBE demonstrated definite CD in 24 patients (80.0%) and suspected findings of CD in six patients. The pathology results obtained by endoscopic biopsies revealed a granuloma in six patients (23.1%). The DBE identified additional findings not detected by radiology studies in 24 patients (80%) although the small bowel followthrough and the abdominal CT revealed the abnormal findings (73.1% and 64%).

DBE may be a promising alternative and useful technique for patients with suspected CD. DBE provides biopsy sampling and more detailed information than radiology studies.