Background: Small bowel tumors are relatively rare, and their confirmative diagnosis before surgery is not easy.
Aims: This study was performed to investigate the clinical characteristics of patients with small bowel tumors who received double-balloon enteroscopy (DBE). Secondary end points were to evaluate the usefulness and safety of DBE for the diagnosis of patients with suspected SB tumors derived from other previous procedures.
Methods: We retrospectively analyzed consecutive DBE examinations to explore the small intestine in eight university hospitals over a 5-year period.
Results: A total of 877 DBE examinations (per oral 487, per anal 390) were performed in 645 patients (405 males, mean age 48.2 years). Small bowel tumors were diagnosed in 112 patients (17.4%), of which 38 patients had benign polyps, 29 had gastrointestinal stromal tumors/leiomyomata, 18 had lymphomas, 14 had adenocarcinomas, five had metastatic or invasive cancers, five had lipomas, and three patients had cystic tumors. The main reasons for DBE among patients with small bowel tumors were obscure gastrointestinal bleeding (OGIB, 40.2%) followed by abnormal imaging study (25.2%). The concordance rate of diagnoses based on DBE with diagnoses based on small bowel follow-through, CT, and capsule endoscopy among patients with small bowel tumors was 68.9% (42/61), 75.3% (70/93), and 78.3% (18/23), respectively. Therapeutic plans were changed due to the DBE results in 64.2% of patients with small bowel tumors.
Conclusions: Approximately one-sixth of patients who received DBE had small bowel tumors, and the most common reason for DBE among patients with small bowel tumors was OGIB. DBE is a useful method for the confirmative diagnosis of small bowel tumors and has a good clinical impact on therapeutic plans and short-term clinical results.