Neil Gupta, MD, wrote an article in Gastroenterology featuring four ways to improve your adenoma detection rate.
Here are four questions, Dr. Gupta said successful gastroenterologists should ask themselves.
1. Are my patients achieving a high-quality bowel preparation?
To ensure a high-quality rate, implement a validated bowel preparation quality scale during colonoscopy and document the quality after every procedure.
If more than 85 percent of colonoscopies are adequate but the detection rate is low, Dr. Gupta said recommended considering additional factors.
2. Am I spending enough time?
Dr. Gupta says if withdrawal times are consistently more than 6 minutes but polyps were not detected, increasing the amount of time examining the colon can improve the detection rate.
3. Can I improve my colonoscopy technique?
If physicians spend enough time with patients and bowel preparation quality is high, but the detection rate is still low, Dr. Gupta said it becomes time to evaluate colonoscopy technique.
4. Is there a technology that can help?
Dr. Gupta said endoscopes lack the following: improving the identification of adenomas through improving their color/contrast compared with surrounding colonic mucosa and improving the identification of adenomas through improving visualization of areas behind colonic folds