Oral 9 Colonoscopy Is Associated With a Reduced Risk of Colon Cancer and Mortality in Patients With Inflammatory Bowel Diseases
Author insight from Ashwin N. Ananthakrishnan, MD, MPH, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston
What’s new here and important for clinicians?
What is new here is that in IBD patients, while surveillance colonoscopies in those with prolonged duration of disease is a frequent practice, the benefits of that haven’t been consistently demonstrated. Using a large cohort of patients, we showed that in patients with ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease, those who had a recent colonoscopy within 3 years were significantly less likely to have colon cancer on follow-up. Further more, among those who did develop colon cancer – those with a recent colonoscopy had much lower mortality (suggesting perhaps that cancer was diagnosed at an earlier stage though we couldn’t look at that directly).
What do patients need to know?
It is important for patients to recognize that surveillance intervals and practices are different for IBD and non-IBD patients and it is important to have regular surveillance colonoscopies even if someone is feeling well once they’ve reached 8-10 years after diagnosis.
Author Contact
Ashwin N Ananthakrishnan, MD, MPH, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston
aananthakrishnan@mgh.harvard.edu
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