MARCH 22, 2016

More Than Half of Colonoscopy-Related Perforations Lead to Surgery

Diagnostic perforations linked to greater risk than those involving therapeutic procedures, study finds

Colonic perforations from colonoscopy are rare but typically lead to serious complications, including surgery and prolonged hospital admissions, a new study shows.

The analysis, of more than 263,000 colonoscopies performed over a seven-year period, was conducted within England’s National Health Service Bowel Cancer Screening Programme (NHSBCSP). In all, 147 perforations (0.06%) were identified. For the perforations that had complete data available, almost all resulted in hospital