Use Computed Tomographic Colonography in Patients with Obstructing Colon Cancers

When patients have colon cancers that obstruct passage of a colonoscope and subtotal colectomy is not planned, how well does imaging of the proximal colon with computed tomographic colonography (CTC) detect and characterize lesions?

To address that question, investigators assessed the performance of CTC in 411 consecutive patients who underwent the procedure for proximal colon evaluation after colonoscopy was incomplete because of a stenosing colorectal cancer. Analyses were limited to 284 patients for whom pathologic examination of colectomy specimens or lesions from the proximal colon was feasible and provided a reference standard for cancer diagnosis.

CTC detected six out of six patients with proximal synchronous cancers and eight out of e…