Small-bowel capsule endoscopy: the test and MRI precautions

A small-bowel video capsule is a single-use camera swallowed to collect images of the small intestine. It may be used in some assessments, including Crohn’s disease; it cannot take a biopsy.

Before the examination, provide your medical history and medicines, including any known or suspected intestinal narrowing. In its Crohn’s document, HAS says a small-bowel stricture must be excluded before this test: the team determines the necessary assessment.

Follow your centre’s instructions about fasting, meals and medicines. At Nancy, a recorder and sometimes sensors collect images for at least eight hours; ask when to return them and how you will receive the results.

The capsule can become stuck in the intestine and, rarely, cause obstruction. Ask the service how to confirm that it has passed and whom to call if unsure; MRI is contraindicated until passage is judged certain.

Without emergency signs, seek care the same day for abdominal pain with nausea, vomiting or fever, difficulty urinating, no stool and no gas, yellow skin or eyes, new persistent pain preventing usual activity, an unusually late period, red blood or black stools, or high fever. Also seek care the same day if vomiting worsens or lasts over two days, fever, headache, fatigue, weight loss or pain appears, an older person also has diarrhoea, immunity is weakened, or an infant under three months vomits. Outside these situations, consult in the coming days for persistent or recurrent unevaluated pain, new constipation, weight loss, pain with long-term medicines, unexplained nausea, mild vomiting attributed to a medicine, or vomiting after the fourth month of pregnancy.

Call 15 or 112 in France for sudden severe abdominal pain, pain spreading from the upper abdomen to chest, neck or shoulders, after trauma, with vomiting blood or brown fluid, with faintness and fever, or with nausea and vomiting in a person with diabetes; also for a very hard, painful rigid abdomen, breathing difficulty at rest, persistent or worsening, or a new type of pain during pregnancy. Also call for vomiting blood, nausea with chest pain, or dehydration; with nausea or vomiting also call for an older person who stops drinking or becomes drowsy or confused, neck stiffness, headache or altered consciousness, severe abdominal pain with a hard swollen abdomen and no gas, suspected serious poisoning, or vomiting after a head injury.