Evaluation of symptomatic small bowel stricture in Crohn's disease by double-balloon endoscopy.

Purpose: To assess the efficacy of double-balloon endoscopy (DBE) for the detection of small-bowel strictures in Crohn's disease (CD).

Methods: This tertiary-referral hospital cohort study was conducted between January 2018 and May 2022. CD patients with symptoms of small-bowel stricture were enrolled sequentially. All of the patients were subjected to both computed tomography enterography (CTE) and DBE, and their symptoms of stricture were assessed using the Crohn's Disease Obstructive Score (CDOS). The diagnostic yield of DBE was compared to that of CTE, and the relationship between the DBE findings and CDOS was investigated. The factors influencing the DBE diagnosis were examined using Cox regression analysis.

Results: This study included 165 CD patients. The CDOS scores were higher in 95 patients and lower in 70 patients. DBE detected 92.7% (153/165) and CTE detected 85.5% (141/165) of the strictures. The DBE diagnostic yields were 94.7% (90/95) in the high CDOS patients and 91.4% (64/70) in the low CDOS patients (P = 0.13). Patients with a history of abdominal surgery and abscess had a lower diagnosis rate in the multivariate analysis.

Conclusion: DBE has been demonstrated to be an efficient diagnostic method for detecting small bowel strictures in CD patients. Additionally, there was no difference in the diagnostic yields between patients with low and high obstructive scores.