Reuters is reporting that research conducted by Dr. Pickhardt at the University of Wisconsin Medical School concluded that ‘virtual colonoscopies’ are a satisfactory substitute to the traditional procedures.
The first study into results of virtual colonoscopies paid for by insurance showed that only 6.4 percent of patients required follow-up with optical colonoscopy, which involves threading a tiny camera on a tube through the rectum and into the colon.
“Our positive experience with virtual colonoscopy screening covered by health insurance demonstrates its enormous potential for increasing compliance for colorectal cancer prevention and screening,” said Dr. Perry Pickhardt of the University of Wisconsin Medical School in Madison.
Pickhardt’s team used three-dimensional computed tomography colonography, commonly known as virtual colonoscopy, to screen 1,110 adults with an average age of 58. The virtual procedure is noninvasive and involves passing the patient through a scanning machine.
They found large or medium polyps in 10 percent of the patients. Seventy-one, or 6.4 percent, of the patients had a second, standard colonoscopy, most on the same day.
The standard colonoscopy findings were the same as the virtual colonoscopy findings in 65 of the 71 patients, the researchers reported in the journal Radiology.
I’m assuming that traditional bowel prep will continue to be required and its my understanding that this is the most dreaded part of the procedure. So now I have to crap myself clean and I’m not given drugs later?!?
Read more here . . .