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World J Gastrointest Endosc. Sep 16, 2016; 8(17): 600-609
Published online Sep 16, 2016. doi: 10.4253/wjge.v8.i17.600
Review of small-bowel cleansing scales in capsule endoscopy: A panoply of choices
Ana Ponte, Rolando Pinho, Adélia Rodrigues, João Carvalho
Ana Ponte, Rolando Pinho, Adélia Rodrigues, João Carvalho, Department of Gastroenterology, Centro Hospitalar Vila Nova de Gaia/Espinho, Vila Nova de Gaia, 4434-502 Porto, Portugal
Author contributions: Ponte A designed the study, performed the research, analyzed the data and wrote the paper; Pinho R designed the study, performed the research, analyzed the data and wrote the paper; Rodrigues A performed the research and analyzed the data; Carvalho J performed the research and analyzed the data.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflict of interest for this article, including commercial, personal, political, intellectual or religious interests.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Dr. Ana Ponte, MD, Department of Gastroenterology, Centro Hospitalar Vila Nova de Gaia/Espinho, Rua Conceição Fernandes, Vila Nova de Gaia, 4434-502 Porto, Portugal. ana.ilponte@gmail.com
Telephone: +351-96-5651833 Fax: +351-22-7868369
Received: April 9, 2016
Peer-review started: April 10, 2016
First decision: June 6, 2016
Revised: June 17, 2016
Accepted: July 14, 2016
Article in press: July 18, 2016
Published online: September 16, 2016
Abstract

Evaluation of the quality of small-bowel cleansing is required to assess the reliability of findings in capsule endoscopy (CE). Moreover, consensus regarding the need of intestinal preparation for CE remains to be achieved. The presence of multiple grading scales for small-bowel preparation in CE, which are time-consuming and complicated, adds difficulty to the comparison of different small-bowel cleansing regimens and their application in clinical practice. Nowadays, a validated scale universally accepted for grading small-bowel cleansing is lacking. In fact, there are numerous grading systems with very different technical characteristics, namely, the parameters and the portion of the CE video that are analyzed, the objectivity of the analysis, the lesser or greater dependency on the operator, and the validation of the score. The authors performed a review which aims to systematize and summarize currently available small-bowel grading scales in CE.

Keywords: Capsule endoscopy, Small-bowel, Small-bowel Cleansing Scales, Enteroscopy, Grading

Core tip: Evaluation of the quality of small-bowel cleansing is required to assess the reliability of findings in capsule endoscopy (CE). Moreover, consensus regarding the need of intestinal preparation for CE remains to be achieved. Currently, there are numerous grading systems with very different technical characteristics, namely, the parameters and the portion of the CE video that are analyzed, the objectivity of the analysis, the lesser or greater dependency on the operator, and the validation of the score. The main purpose of this review is to gather and concise all small-bowel cleansing scales in CE available, as this has not been previously performed.