1321 Repeat Colonoscopy: Incidence, Etiology, And Suggestions for Improvement
Abstract Aim Colonoscopy is an invasive procedure. Repeating such a procedure has many implications in terms of risks, costs, increased workload and strains on hospital resources. The current study reports the incidence and aetiology of repeat colonoscopies and provides recommendations for improvement. Method The current study was conducted at North Cumbria Integrated Care (NCIC) hospitals over a period of 1 year (January 1st to December 31st, 2019). All patients with a label of “Repeat” by JAG software system, were included in the primary analysis. Patients with colonoscopy after 52 weeks of the index procedure, were excluded. Two authors manually assessed the validity of the data and determined “True repeat rate” and aetiology. Results During the study period, 4717 colonoscopies were performed, where 187 were recorded as a repeat. Manual validation showed that true repeat cases were 355/4717 (7.52%). Moreover, 5% of the system labelled cases where not true repeats rather were escalated from sigmoidoscopy to colonoscopy. Analysis of the first 1000 colonoscopies detected 72 cases. Male to female ratio was 47:25 with a mean age of 66.26 ± 11.75(SD). The causes included further management of polyps (n = 30); poor bowel preparation(n = 22); inability to proceed (n = 9); anticoagulation (n = 8) and others (n = 3). Subgroup analyses of the polyp group showed that the reasons for repeating colonoscopy in such cases were appropriate. Conclusions An operational definition of the ‘Repeat coloscopy’ should be clearly established. Although most of the repeat colonoscopies for “further management of polyps” are appropriate, repeat due to poor bowel preparation and anticoagulation are clearly preventable.