Efficacy of Drinking Water on Transit Time and Complete Examination Rate During Capsule Endoscopy

Capsule endoscopy has been a significant technologic advancement that has allowed the direct examination of mucosa throughout the entire small intestine in a noninvasive fashion; and it has become the primary technique for imaging the small bowel. However, as imaging time is limited to about 8 hours, a prolonged transit of the capsule endoscope in the stomach may result in an incomplete small bowel transit (i.e. failure of the capsule to reach the cecum). Delayed transit time of stomach may be responsible for the failure of capsule endoscopy to visualize the distal portions of the small bowel, and potentially may result in the inability to identify small-bowel pathology in these areas. Previous study showed that drinking water might improve completion rate of capsule endoscopy. And bowel preparation of clear liquids may improve image quality of small bowel mucosa. The aim of this study was to assess the effect of drinking water on the transit time，completion rate and image quality of capsule endoscopy.