Deep sedation helps doctors find more polyps: study

By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Doctors find more colon polyps when their patients are fully unconscious instead of only moderately sedated during colonoscopy exams, U.S. researchers said on Monday.

They said having patients fully sedated during a colonoscopy may allow doctors to focus on the task at hand and do better work.

In the United States, the vast majority of patients are partially conscious during colonoscopies, but new automatic sedation machines, such as Johnson & Johnson's Sedasys device, may allow more patients to be screened, the researchers said.

A colonoscopy is an uncomfortable procedure in which a long, flexible, lighted tube is inserted through the rectum to look for precancerous lesions or polyps in the colon.

During the procedure, the doctor may remove precancerous growths, preventing the development of cancer, and take tissue samples. The procedure can detect colorectal cancer at early stages when it responds best to treatment.

Colonoscopy exams are generally recommended for people age 50 or older, but patients often skip the procedure.

Dr Katherine Hoda and colleagues at the Oregon Health & Science University in Portland studied endoscopy reports on more than 100,000 patients having colonoscopies done under deep sedation or moderate conscious sedation, in which patients can hear and respond to directions during the procedure.

They found that doctors detected 25 percent more large colon polyps when patients were fully sedated compared with those who were moderately sedated, even after controlling for such factors as age, gender and race.