Capsule Endoscopy in Inflammatory Bowel Disease: Current Applications

Since its introduction to clinical practice in 2001, small-bowel capsule endoscopy (SBCE) has become an important investigation procedure in many small bowel pathologies, including both suspected and known Crohn’s disease (CD). SBCE has higher diagnostic yield than other radiologic and endoscopic modalities used in evaluation of patients with suspected CD. In addition, SBCE has proved useful, in a non-invasive and safe manner, as a monitoring method for evaluating the severity and extent of lesions, postoperative recurrence, and mucosal healing in patients with known CD. Monitoring of colonic inflammation in patients with ulcerative colitis (UC) using second-generation of colon capsule endoscopy (CCE-2) has also been reported. Besides its advantages, CE also has several limitations such as the inability to obtain biopsies and lack of therapeutic capabilities, hopefully to be overcome in the near future by advances in modern technologies.