Researchers investigated data from 15,098 patients who underwent colonoscopy from Jan. 2001-Dec. 2008. Patients were divided into two groups — 1,106 hemodialysis patients and 13,992 controls — and evaluated on incidence of colonic perforation, patient characteristics and locations of perforation during colonoscopy, according to the study.
Colonic perforations occurred in five hemodialysis patients and three controls, according to the study. Hemodialysis was associated with a higher incidence of perforations (0.45 percent vs. 0.02 percent) even after results were analyzed based on age, sex and patients who received polypectomies.
The researchers concluded that β2-microglobulin deposition may play a role in the higher incidence, as it was observed in all three hemodialysis patients with perforations.
Read the study on hemodialysis’s effect on colonoscopy.
