Complications of upper gastrointestinal endoscopy and their management

The tremendous growth in the use of gastrointestinal endoscopy has necessarily produced complications of the procedures. In general, overall reported complication rates for diagnostic endoscopy are extremely low (0.13%-0.24%) reflecting these procedures' overall safety. However, many of these reports are likely to underestimate the true complication rate. Therapeutic procedures have substantially higher complication rates, the most frequent of which is perforation. Esophageal dilation, achalasia pneumatic dilation, and esophageal endoprosthesis placement carry the highest risk of perforation, 0.25%, 3.3%, and 7% to 15%, respectively. The outcomes research movement will revolutionize the future practice of endoscopy. Practice guidelines for endoscopy will not be determined by expert panels, but will be established empirically by outcomes research. Accurate complication rates will be determined from studies with complete and timely collection of intervention, confounding factors, and outcome. Finally, risk factors will be established by studies of appropriate design and power.