Colonoscopy Beats 'Camera Pill' at Catching Colon Cancer
Described as more extensive than colonoscopy preps, this involves swallowing liquids designed to clean the colon and optimize pill movement and imaging.
The effectiveness of the colon capsule was directly related to how well the patients had cleaned their colons. Detection sensitivity was significantly worse among those patients with poor or fair colon cleanliness than those with good or excellent cleanliness.
Also, the pill procedure detected only 64 percent of polyps 6 millimeters in size or larger that were identified by standard colonoscopy. And with similarly sized advanced cancer, capsule screening captured just 73 percent of adenomas that were spotted by colonoscopy.
Of 19 confirmed cases of colon cancer uncovered through colonoscopies, just 14 were caught by the pill technique, the researchers noted.
The authors therefore concluded that capsule endoscopy is currently inferior to colonoscopy as a screening method, but they called for more research.
The noninvasive character of this technique has the potential to encourage more patients to get screened for colon cancer, Van Gossum said.
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