I am on my flight back from ASCO, the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Orlando, where over 20,000 oncologists from around the world discuss the newest data in clinical and translational research. This year’s theme was personalized oncology care. Read the rest of this entry »

Bowel perforation, or a hole in the colon, is one of the complications of colonoscopy.  Different reported rates of perforation have been confusing.

A pooled analysis of published studies of perforation rates was reported during a Digestive Disease Week session on May 31.  Including 17 different studies covering more than a quarter million colonoscopies, the perforation rate for therapeutic colonoscopy was 1 in 1,500 exams.  In purely screening or diagnostic tests, perforations occured in only 1 in 6,000 tests.  Perforation risk is about three times higher when polyps are removed during the colonoscopy.

Analysis showed a trend toward decreasing rates of perforations over time. Read the rest of this entry »