Provocative endoscopy: Let sleeping dogs lie or grab the tiger by the tail?

Gastrointestinal bleeding is a common cause of hospitalization and results in extensive use of health care resources. By the most conservative measures, the cost of inpatient care alone for GI bleeding in the United States exceeds $6.5 billion each year.1 The vast majority of GI bleeding from the upper or lower GI tract is identified or managed with standard endoscopic techniques including upper endoscopy, colonoscopy, or radiologic evaluation. The rare cases in which the aforementioned techniques, in combination with video capsule endoscopy (VCE), device-assisted enteroscopy (DAE), or both, are unsuccessful in identifying the cause of the bleeding (1%-2% of all GI  bleeding cases) are classified under the umbrella of obscure GI bleeding (OGIB).
Source: Gastrointestinal Endoscopy - Category: Gastroenterology Authors: Tags: Original article Source Type: research