Routine colonoscopies miss more than 10% of polyps

A study of adults who did not have signs of colon disease found that traditional optical (flexible) colonoscopies missed more than a tenth of precancerous polyps that were identifiable with virtual colonoscopy, a new “virtual” procedure using computed tomography to form three dimensional images of the colon.

In the study, researchers led by Dr Perry Pickhardt of the University of Wisconsin Medical School, Madison, evaluated 1233 asymptomatic adults (mean age 57.8 years) who had virtual colonoscopy and optical colonoscopy on the …