Similar Adenoma Detection Rates in Colonoscopic Procedures of Patients with Spinal Cord Injury Compared to Controls

Cancer is a major cause of death in patients with spinal cord injury (SCI). Preventive strategies, such as colonoscopy, deal with higher burdens that may lead to lower quality.

The primary objective was to evaluate the adenoma detection rate. Secondary objectives were to investigate other quality indicators regarding bowel preparation, sedation, and endoscopy.

Consecutive SCI patients who had undergone colonoscopy from 2003 to 2014 were assigned to a control group matched for age, gender, and year of procedure and reviewed retrospectively.

Bowel preparation lasted longer (3.6 ± 1.5 vs. 1.2 ± 0.6 days, p = 0.001), achieved unsatisfactory cleansing results more often (23.7 vs. 3.6%) and caused more adverse events in 236 SCI compared to 414 control patients. Colonoscopy needed a longer time (36.9 vs. 25.0 min) and remained incomplete more often (24.6 vs. 4.6%), resulting in more re-colonoscopies (14.8 vs. 4.3%). Endoscopy- and sedation-related adverse events were equal. However, neither overall nor size-dependent polyp (30.9 vs. 34.8%), adenoma (21.2 vs. 21.0%), advanced adenoma (6.8 vs. 7.2%), or cancer (1.7 vs. 2.0%) detection rates differed.

Despite intensified protocols, bowel preparation shows inferior results in SCI patients; colonoscopy needs more effort to succeed but achieves a comparable quality.