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Recently, we reported the results of a Mayo Clinic study of perforations during colonoscopy (JW Aug 14 2008). Now, Canadian researchers have used administrative data to calculate population-based rates of bleeding or perforation that resulted from outpatient colonoscopy in four provinces in 2002 or 2003. Patients who underwent colonoscopy for therapeutic procedures and patients with known colorectal cancer or inflammatory bowel disease were excluded. Only bleeding or perforation that resulted in hospitalization within 30 days after colonoscopy was counted.
About 97,000 colonoscopies were reviewed. Bleeding occurred in 1 in 600 procedures, and perforation occurred in 1 in 1200 procedures. The death rate was roughly 1 in 14,000 procedures. In …