Comparing Bowel symptoms to colonoscopy findings
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Evaluating the diagnostic yield of colonoscopy in those with symptoms compatible with functional bowel disorders and without alarm features
IRAS ID
253210
Contact name
Imran AzIz
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS FT
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
Colonoscopy is camera test with a flexible endoscope looking at the large bowel. It is an expensive and invasive test, which at times can be difficult to perform. It also has small but appreciable risks associated with it, such as bowel perforation and bleeding. Moreover, colonoscopy places huge demands on healthcare resources and waiting times. Hence, gastroenterologists must carefully select which of their patients with bowel symptoms warrants a colonoscopy.
Guidelines advise us not to perform routine colonoscopy in those fulfilling symptom-based criteria for a functional bowel disorder. This is because early data has shown a lack of diagnostic yield in such patients. However, many of these patients still get referred for a colonoscopy as recent studies have shown that we could be missing serious organic pathology.
The aim of this simple study is to evaluate what proportion of subjects referred for out-patient colonoscopy fulfil symptom-based functional bowel disorder and what proportion of those with functional bowel disorder do not have alarm features.REC name
North West - Greater Manchester South Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
18/NW/0745
Date of REC Opinion
2 Nov 2018
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion