June 25, 2018 – Colonoscopy and Infection

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Anchor lead: What’s your risk of infection after an endoscopic procedure such as colonoscopy? Elizabeth Tracey reports

What’s your risk of developing an infection after colonoscopy or EGD, a test to look at the lining of your esophagus and stomach, if you have the procedure in an ambulatory surgery center? According to Susan Hutfless, a gastroenterology researcher at Johns Hopkins, that rate is much higher than anyone predicted.

Hutfless: Each year in the United States there are over 20 million for colonoscopy or EGD, to screen for colorectal cancer or look inside someone’s esophagus and their stomach. We aimed to look at how often people ended up in the emergency room or hospital within one week after having a colonscopy or an EGD in an ambulatory surgery center. We found that this rate was about one in one thousand.  :32

Hutfless notes that the rate of infection is lowest in centers with the highest volume of procedures. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.