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Data are lacking to support the observation that obese patients often have unsatisfactory bowel preparation for colonoscopy. To determine the correlation of body-mass index (BMI) and quality of bowel preparation, investigators retrospectively evaluated 1600 colonoscopies (mean patient age, 57; 59% female) performed at a single U.S. center during a 4-month period. More than two thirds of patients (68%) were overweight (BMI ≥25 kg/m2), 37% were obese (BMI ≥30), and 16% had BMI ≥35.
Overall, only 75% of patients had adequate bowel preparation (defined by a ranking of excellent or good). When the evaluation included more-stringent criteria (i.e., difficulty visualizing polyps that were ≤5 mm and shortening of the surveillance interval), the prop…