Pii: S0016-5107(05)01566-x

Celiac disease is a gluten-sensitive enteropathy that occurs in genetically predisposed individuals. Patients with the disease must adhere to a strict gluten-free diet. However, not all patients respond promptly to the diet, and some develop symptoms while on the diet. The presence of persistent abdominal pain and blood detected in the stool raise the possibility of complications such as small intestinal malignancy and ulcerative jejunitis. Until recently, the evaluation of patients with smallintestinal diseases was limited to endoscopy and biopsy, push enteroscopy, small-intestinal barium studies, and CTs. Because these studies are not sensitive at detecting small-intestinal lesions, the diagnosis of small-intestinal malignancies is often delayed. Wireless capsule endoscopy (WCE) of the small intestine has been used to detect and to localize smallintestinal bleeding sites in patients with obscure GI bleeding. It has proven to be far more sensitive than other available techniques. More recently, WCE has been used to detect small-intestinal lesions not identified by radiologic techniques in patients with inflammatory bowel disease. Therefore, we used WCE to evaluate patients with celiac disease who had abdominal pain or other symptoms suggestive of an associated malignancy,