Our gastroenterology team at U-M Health has the resources of the entire medical center, and we work in collaboration with other divisions to provide the most complete care. Our surgeons specialize in small bowel diseases and our pathologists, who review unusual findings on biopsies, have extensive small bowel experience.

To schedule an appointment to discuss small bowel bleeding or other digestive or liver health concerns, call us at 888-229-7408.

Patients with small bowel polyps or tumors can have no symptoms, although patients with malabsorptive diseases often have symptoms of weight loss or diarrhea. When symptoms do occur they can include:

• Bleeding
• Anemia (not enough healthy red blood cells to get oxygen through the body, making you feel weak and cold)
• Diarrhea
• Abdominal pain
• Unintentional weight loss

At U-M Health, our multidisciplinary team provides the newest minimally invasive treatments  for diagnosing and treating polyps, tumors, and malabsorptive diseases in the small bowel. Although these treatments are not widely available, our small bowel gastroenterologists are expert with these techniques, are highly experienced, and have performed thousands of advanced procedures.  

To diagnose, we start with a comprehensive examination and obtain a thorough history.

Often, a capsule endoscopy is a required diagnostic exam. Capsule endoscopy is a study that allows us to see all the way through the small bowel and find things we wouldn’t be able to see any other way. The procedure involves swallowing a small capsule, which is the size of a large vitamin pill. Inside the capsule is a tiny wireless camera that takes more than 50,000 digital pictures as it passes through the small intestine. Images are transmitted to a recording device worn on a belt around your waist. This recording device saves the pictures for a specialist to look at and interpret at a later time. Our experienced doctors have performed more than 3,500 capsule endoscopies.

• Tumor and polyp treatment: If we find a mass or a polyp during the capsule endoscopy, we revisit that area to biopsy the lesion. 
• Double balloon enteroscopy is a specialty endoscopy, or scope test, which allows doctors to go deep into the small bowel. The technology includes the use of balloon attachments on a scope, which help move the scope through the small bowel to the affected area. Through the scope we can biopsy a tumor, remove a small lesion, or mark an area with dye for future surgical localization, helping a surgeon to know exactly where to go. If there is bleeding from a lesion during the double balloon enteroscopy, we can use either a laser or other devices to stop the bleeding. In the state of Michigan, this minimally invasive procedure is performed only through the Small Bowel Program, where our doctors have performed over 1,000 double balloon enteroscopies
• Malabsorptive disease treatment: Most malabsorptive diseases diseases are treated with dietary changes and/or medications.