Welcome to my website
This site has information about colonoscopy and links to sites related to Endoscopy. There are interesting pictures, incidents and numbers related to my colonoscopy practice. I hope you enjoy this site. I would welcome your ideas, suggestions and feedback.
What is a colonoscopy?
It is an examination of the inside of the large bowel. Large bowel or colon is the lower end of the ‘Gut’. The function of the colon is to absorb water from digested food before it passes through. A narrow flexible tube is used for this purpose. Images are seen on a monitor. The bowel is prepared with laxatives before the examination.
What does a colonoscopy detect?
Identifies problems in the colon such as inflammation, polyp or even cancer. The symptoms that lead upto a colonoscopy include change in bowel habit, bleeding, abdominal pain, detection of a lump in the abdomen etc.
What are the complications of a colonoscopy?
What are the complications of a colonoscopy?
Are there alternatives to a colonoscopy?
Colonoscopy is the gold standard to examine the colon. It has the unique advantage of being able to provide with ‘biopsies’ or samples when necessary. Also polyps can be removed during the procedure unlike other comparative tests.
Virtual CT is appealing to the patients as there is tube being inserted- however this technology is still improving. Very often a colonoscopy is necessary following a virtual CT to confirm/take biopsies/or to remove polypsost colonoscopies are straight forward. Very often patients find the laxatives that have to be taken prior to the procedure is the hard bit of the test.
My Stats...
I have done over 7000 endoscopy procedures. Of this over 4000 are colonoscopies (the rest being Gastroscopies/flexible sigmoidoscopies etc)
I have had no perforation so far. I have had one patient who required operative treatment due to bleeding 10 days after removal of a polyp.