A study by researchers in Japan concludes that Double Balloon Endoscopy™ (DBE) was very useful in the diagnosis of obscure gastrointestinal (GI) bleeding and had a therapeutic impact on the majority of patients.

Researchers from Korea have found that technically efficient screening and diagnostic colonoscopy generally requires experience with 150 cases or more. The study appears in the April issue of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, the monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal of the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE).

A small capsule that takes “snapshots” of the small intestine as it moves through the digestive tract helped doctors spot cases of Crohn’s disease that had gone undiagnosed for up to 15 years, according to researchers at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center.

Research from La Fe University Hospital in Valencia, Spain shows that capsule endoscopy diagnoses more Crohn’s disease recurrence after surgery than colonoscopy. Capsule endoscopy led to changes in therapy for more than half of the patients studied.