Video capsule endoscopy versus computed tomography enterography in assessing suspected small bowel bleeding: a systematic review and diagnostic test accuracy meta-analysis

Both computed tomography enterography (CTE) and video capsule endoscopy (VCE) are used in identifying small intestinal pathology in patients with suspected small bowel bleeding (SSBB) following normal upper gastrointestinal endoscopy and colonoscopy. Evidence of the comparative accuracy of these two modalities is crucial for clinical and healthcare decision-making. Comprehensive electronic searches were performed for studies on CTE and/or VCE with reference standard(s). Study selection, data extraction and quality assessment were completed by two authors independently. The QUADAS-2 and QUADAS-C tools were used to assess risk of bias, and applicability. Meta-analysis was performed using a bivariate model to obtain summary estimates of sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative likelihood ratios. Twenty-five studies involving 1986 patients with SSBB were included. Four of these were head-to-head comparison of CTE and VCE. Overall, VCE provided significantly higher sensitivity of 0.74 (95% CI: 0.61–0.83) versus 0.47 (95% CI: 0.32–0.62) for CTE, while CTE showed significantly higher specificity of 0.94 (95% CI: 0.64–0.99) versus 0.53 (95% CI: .36–0.69) for VCE. The positive likelihood ratio of CTE was 7.36 (95% CI: 0.97–56.01) versus 1.58 (95% CI: 1.15–2.15) for VCE and the negative likelihood ratio was 0.49 (95% CI: 0.33–0.72) for VCE versus 0.56 (0.40–0.79) for CTE. A secondary analysis of only head-to-head comparative studies gave results that were similar to the main analysis. Certainty of evidence was moderate. Neither VCE nor CTE is a perfect test for identifying etiology of SSBB in small intestine. VCE was more sensitive while CTE was more specific. Clinicians should choose the appropriate modality depending on whether better sensitivity or specificity is required in each clinical scenario.