The magic phrase that you want to hear after your colonoscopy is, “See you in ten years.” This means that your gastroenterologist has given you a clean bill of health and you will not need another colon screening for a decade.
Because colonoscopies are often a once-every-ten-years affair, you want to have a quality exam. You do your part by completely emptying your bowel by carefully following the colonoscopy prep instructions. Your doctor’s responsibility is to provide you with the most accurate information about the lining of your colon and rectum. This is done by advancing the colonoscope until it stops near the appendix in the right colon and carefully inspecting the colon for precancerous polyps while withdrawing the scope.
The amount of time that your doctor takes to withdraw the scope is known as withdrawal time. New data presented at the ACG Annual Scientific Meeting stated that longer withdrawal times during screening colonoscopies were associated with increased adenoma (polyp) detection rates, and shorter withdrawal times are associated with increased risk for interval colon cancer.
Aasma Shaukat, M.D., a gastroenterologist at the Minneapolis VA Medical Center, said that the goal of the study was to analyze “the withdrawal times and interval colorectal cancers [and] to study the association of adenoma detection rate with interval cancers in the presence of withdrawal time.”
Looking at over 75,000 records of screening colonoscopies performed by over 50 gastroenterologists in Minnesota from 2004 to 2009, Shaukat and his colleagues calculated average annual withdrawal times and adenoma detection rates. The study clearly found that longer withdrawal time was associated with a higher adenoma detection rate. The average annual withdrawal time was 8.6 minutes, and the annual adenoma detection rate was 26 percent. Withdrawal time was inversely associated with adenoma detection rate, and adenoma detection rates increased by 2.5 percent per minute.
Therefore, the longer your doctor spends scoping each segment of your colon, the better the chances of finding a precancerous polyp or lesion. The reason why colonoscopy is the gold standard for colon screening is because polyps can be removed before they even have the chance to develop into cancer. Because of its diagnostic, therapeutic and preventative qualities, colonoscopy is the most effective method for colon cancer detection and prevention.
When you are looking for a qualified gastroenterologist to perform your colonoscopy, look for a doctor with a withdrawal time of at least six minutes. This means that the doctor spends a longer time examining the intestine and has a higher probability of finding a polyp. You should feel completely confident in requesting your doctor’s withdrawal time because this will be one of the best ways to compare gastroenterologists (Source: Healio).
