TUESDAY, Nov. 29, 2005 (HealthDay News) -- When used with computer-aided detection, computed tomography colonography -- also called virtual colonoscopy -- is highly effective at detecting colon polyps.
That's the conclusion of a U.S. National Institutes of Health study presented Monday at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America in Chicago.
Virtual colonoscopy is less costly than conventional colonoscopy and carries no risk of bleeding or colon perforation. Furthermore, intravenous sedation is not necessary for virtual colonoscopy, which takes about 15 minutes, the researchers noted.
Computer-aided detection (CAD) helps detect polyps on virtual colonoscopy images that might be missed by a radiologist.
"The performance of virtual colonoscopy continues to improve, and the exam will become a colorectal cancer screening method more patients and doctors will find acceptable," study senior investigator Dr. Ronald M. Summers said in a prepared statement. He is chief of the clinical image processing service and chief of the virtual endoscopy and computer-aided diagnosis laboratory at the NIH clinical center in Bethesda, Md.
The study included 792 patients. Using CAD and virtual colonoscopy, the researchers detected 89.3 percent of patients with polyps 10 millimeters or larger, and 85.4 percent of patients with polyps 8 millimeters and larger. False-positive rates were 2.1 per patient for polyps 10 millimeters and larger, and 6.7 per patient for polyps 8 millimeters and larger. The researchers said those rates fall within acceptable limits.
More information
The U.S. National Library of Medicine has more about virtual colonoscopy.
