Dear AuntMinnie Insider,
Virtual colonoscopy is cost-effective after all, says a just-published study from France. The investigators didn't have to add abdominal aortic aneurysm screening, or bone mineral density assessment from the VC images, to give their patients more quality life years on the cheap.
They got it by simply skipping the colonoscopy referral when polyps were smaller than 6 mm -- an idea most virtual colonoscopy providers could probably get on board with.
For the 5% to 10% of screening VC patients presenting with larger polyps, however, a colonoscopy/polypectomy referral is inevitable. And for this screening model to work efficiently, the gastroenterologist will need to be able to quickly locate the polyps for which the patient was referred.
On that front, researchers from the U.S. National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD, designed an automated curve-fitting method to speed up the process of finding VC-detected polyps at colonoscopy, potentially saving time for both gastroenterologists and patients, who are, after all, under sedation. Find out how it works in this issue's Insider Exclusive.
In any case, women might want to rethink the use of fecal occult blood testing (FOBT) for screening, according to another study. Annual FOBT was only half as sensitive in women as in men, German researchers said. You'll find the details here.
Also of note, a large U.S. military study confirmed the value of VC-detected extracolonic findings, which were followed up at a reasonable cost. In fact, despite so many concerns about the potential for runaway costs and tests and risks resulting from extracolonic findings, we're unaware of any studies showing their detection to be anything but a net benefit, both economically and from a patient health perspective.
In regulatory news, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has finally cleared a virtual colonoscopy computer-aided detection (CAD) system after years of apparent inaction on the CAD front. Learn more about the clinical study behind the milestone by clicking here.
We invite you to scroll through the links below for the rest of the VC coverage, all wrapped up in your Virtual Colonoscopy Digital Community.
