Abstract

Gastroscopy, small bowel endoscopy, and colonoscopy are uncomfortable because they require comparatively large diameter flexible cables to be pushed into the bowel, which carry light by fibreoptic bundles, power, and video signals. Small bowel endoscopy is currently especially limited by problems of discomfort and failure to advance enteroscopes far into the small bowel. There is a clinical need for better methods to examine the small bowel especially in patients with recurrent gastrointestinal bleeding from this site.