The role of capsule endoscopy in diagnosis and clinical management of obscure gastrointestinal bleeding

About 5% of all gastrointestinal (GI) bleeding arises from the small bowel between the ligament of Treitz and the ileocecal valve, termed suspected small bowel bleeding. In this chapter, we review the applications of capsule endoscopy (CE) in the assessment of suspected small bowel bleeding. The yield of CE is highest within 2 weeks of the bleeding event. It can be affected by multiple factors, including patient age and use of anticoagulation. We also discuss CE as compared with enteroscopy and radiographic imaging in the diagnosis of small bowel bleeding. We also review the limitations and contraindications of CE. Finally, we introduce the latest developments in the application of artificial or augmented intelligence to the reading of CE.