Implementation of MR colonography

MR colonography (MRC) is a promising method of examining the colon, but is limited to a few specialist centres. The purpose of this article was to describe the implementation of MRC with fecal tagging.

Patients referred for conventional colonoscopy (CC) were offered MRC with fecal tagging before CC. Two days before MRC patients ingested an oral contrast agent. Before and after MRC and CC a number of questions were addressed. MR images were rated by a blinded investigator.

In 6 months, 30 consecutive patients were included. The median time in the MR suite was 44 min, 23 min for the MRC examination and 9 min for the evaluation. The median time for CC was 32 min. Sixty-six percent of the patients preferred MRC as the future method of examination, 10% preferred CC, 21% had no preferences. Of the oral contrast agents, barium sulphate with ferumoxsil was significantly better than barium sulphate alone.

The majority of the patients found MRC less unpleasant than CC and a majority would prefer MRC over CC as a future colon examination. MRC also appears to be less time consuming to the patients and medical personnel than CC with post-procedural monitoring.