The study looked at 328,167 outpatient colonoscopies and found that 5 percent of patients repeated the procedure within a year.
Of the patients who had a colonoscopy performed by a family physician, 6.4 percent had the repeat procedure within a year. For patients who received the exam from general surgeons, the repeat frequency rate was 5.6 percent and for internists it was 5.3 percent.
For gastroenterologists, who performed approximately 240,000 of the outpatient colonoscopies in the study sample, 4.6 percent had the procedure repeated within a year.
Researchers further concluded that when factoring in variables including age of patients, medical problems and patient income, patients who received a colonoscopy by a family physician were 39 percent more likely to need a repeat procedure within the year compared to a gastroenterologist; patients seen by general surgeons were 18 percent more likely and those seen by an internist were 12 percent more likely to repeat.
Read the AJG’s abstract of the study on colonoscopy frequency.
Read the Reuters report about the colonoscopy study.
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