Adenocarcinoma of the small intestine: a plea for early diagnosis

The small bowel is a difficult organ to examine clinically and study diagnostically. The SBFT study is an adequate screening tool for evaluation of the small bowel, but if there is a moderate to high index of suspicion of an undetected tumor, enteroclysis is better than upper GI series with SBFT for preoperative diagnosis of such lesions. Based on the above findings, we recommend that any patient with symptoms and findings highly suggestive of small bowel tumor, especially chronic GI blood loss with a negative work-up, be viewed with a high index of suspicion and his case investigated aggressively, using enteroclysis followed by exploration.