Is lumbar epidural analgesia an alternative in patients who have incomplete colonoscopy with standard premedication?

Total colonoscopy is unsuccessful in about 10% of attempts. In three fourths of the cases, failure is due to the patient's inability to tolerate the procedure and difficulty in negotiating the sigmoid colon. Lumbar epidural analgesia has been used in a series of 29 patients referred for total colonoscopy which had been unsuccessful using intravenous analgesia. The cecum was reached in 27 of 29 examinations. Mean time required to perform total colonoscopy was 10 min and took less than 5 min in one third of the cases. Complete visceral analgesia was responsible for one case of perforation.