Usefulness of double-balloon endoscopy in the diagnosis of malignant small-bowel tumors.
OBJECTIVE
Double-balloon endoscopy (DBE) enables endoscopic and histopathologic diagnosis of malignant small-bowel tumors (MSBT). This study examined the clinical features of patients with MSBT and evaluated the usefulness of DBE in the diagnosis of MSBT.


METHODS
We retrospectively examined consecutive DBE studies of 358 patients who underwent DBE in our hospital between December 2003 and October 2007 because of suspected or established small-bowel disease.


RESULTS
Fourteen patients with MSBT were diagnosed by DBE. The most common type was primary adenocarcinoma (8 patients), followed by metastatic carcinoma (3 patients) and malignant lymphoma (3 patients). Half of these patients presented with obscure gastrointestinal bleeding (OGIB). Histopathologic diagnosis was obtained in 11 of 14 patients.


CONCLUSIONS
Of 180 patients with OGIB, MSBT accounted for only 3.9%, however, 50% of patients with MSBT presented with OGIB. OGIB is an important clinical feature of small-bowel malignancy, which can be diagnosed by DBE.
Yamagami
Hirokazu
H
Department of Gastroenterology, Osaka City University Graduate School of Medicine, Abeno-ku, Osaka, Japan. yamagami@med.osaka-cu.ac.jp
Oshitani
Nobuhide
N
Hosomi
Shuhei
S
Suekane
Takehisa
T
Kamata
Noriko
N
Sogawa
Mitsue
M
Okazaki
Hirotoshi
H
Watanabe
Kenji
K
Tominaga
Kazunari
K
Watanabe
Toshio
T
Fujiwara
Yasuhiro
Y
Arakawa
Tetsuo
T
D000230:Adenocarcinoma / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000473:pathology / Q000556:secondary; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D016099:Endoscopy, Gastrointestinal / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007414:Intestinal Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000473:pathology; D007421:Intestine, Small / Q000473:pathology*; D008223:Lymphoma / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000473:pathology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012189:Retrospective Studies