Clinical trial NCT05422820: The Argentina Brief Colonoscopy Difficulty Score (ABCD)
Official title: The Argentina Brief Colonoscopy Difficulty Score (ABCD): A Novel Tool to Estimate the Technical Difficulty of Colonoscopy With Caecal Intubation
Study type: OBSERVATIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Conditions: Colorectal Cancer
Diagnoses Disease
Polyp of Colon
Adenoma Colon
Keywords: Colonoscopy
Quality of health care
Endoscopist
Technical difficulty
Lead sponsor: Institute of Gastroenterology and Advance Endoscopy
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: Austral University, Argentina
name: Hospital Nacional Profesor Alejandro Posadas
First posted: 2022-06-21
Enrollment: 5000
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 18
Maximum age (years): 79
Standard ages: ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: no
Observational model: COHORT
Time perspective: PROSPECTIVE
Sampling method: NON_PROBABILITY_SAMPLE
Study population: Patients with an indication of colonoscopy with caecal intubation, regardless of clinical purpose.

Brief summary: Colonoscopy completion by caecal intubation seldom represents a significant effort for the endoscopist. In this situation, additional techniques are necessary to achieve this goal: patients' manual abdominal compression, postural changes, and endoscopist relay. To date, no tool allows colonoscopy technical difficulty grading.

This study pursues to describe the frequency of additional techniques for caecal intubation in a large sample of Argentinians in different centres who undergo colonoscopy for attending purposes, to develop a novel score for assessing colonoscopy technical difficulty.

Detailed description: Colonoscopy is the most performed digestive endoscopy procedure worldwide. It is indicated for colorectal cancer screening, pre-existence surveillance, diagnostic approach in symptomatic patients, and therapeutic purposes. Bowel preparation is the most crucial quality criterion that guarantees appropriate colonic mucosa assessment. Other colonoscopy quality criteria included a colonoscope withdrawal time above 6 to 10 minutes and colonoscopy completion by caecal intubation.

Besides bowel preparation, some situations limit caecal intubation: stenosis, diverticulitis, or haemodynamic instability. In the absence of one of those situations or similar, caecal intubation must be the goal to be achieved by every endoscopist. However, it sometimes represents a significant effort for the endoscopist. It can require additional techniques such as manual abdominal compression, postural changes, colonoscopy restart, and another endoscopist's new attempt. Also, this increases caecal intubation time by over 10 minutes, more anaesthesia and post-colonoscopy abdominal pain, with a higher risk of unnoticed lesions.

To the best of our knowledge, there is no standard definition for colonoscopy technical difficulty in terms of caecal intubation or any tool that grades it based on previously mentioned additional techniques. For the moment, developed tools such as the Difficult Colonoscopy Score (DCS) to consider patients' pre-colonoscopy factors such as age, body mass index (BMI), sleep quality, and endoscopist experience. Other tools are based on a qualitative appreciation of the technical difficulty.

A tool that documents those endpoints constitutes an additional objective quality criterion for colonic mucosa assessment, with critical change management during intra-colonoscopy and post-colonoscopy. Noticed a technically difficult colonoscopy deserves a more prolonged withdrawal time, more photo documentation, a more cautious discharge, more detailed patient instructions, and a personalised follow-up directed to adverse events warnings. A patient with a previous technically difficult colonoscopy will be planned for an earlier next colonoscopy, with a risk assessment independently on the age, pre-colonoscopy consulting with detailing of more potential adverse events, planned in a particular time and with a different anaesthesia planning, and even performed by a more experienced endoscopist or in a referral centre.

This study pursues to describe the frequency of additional techniques for caecal intubation in a large sample of Argentinians in different centres who undergo colonoscopy for attending purposes, to develop a novel score for assessing colonoscopy technical difficulty.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Patients with colonoscopy indication due to colorectal cancer screening, pre-existence surveillance, or diagnostic approach in symptomatic patients.
* Patients with colonoscopy indication due to therapeutic purposes, but with the intention of caecal intubation.

Exclusion Criteria:

* Patients with a previous colonoscopy performed by the attending centre in the last three months.
* Patients with a Boston Bowel Preparation Score (BBPS) ≤1 in at least one colon segment (ascending, transverse, descending).
* Patients with any situations which does not allow caecal intubation: colorectal stenosis, diverticulitis, the indication of proctosigmoidoscopy for assessing ulcerative colitis, or intraprocedural haemodynamic instability, among others.
* Patients with any contraindication for an invasive procedure: uncontrolled coagulopathy, kidney/liver failure or any comorbidity with an important impact on cardiac risk assessment or physical status: New York Heart Association (NYHA) risk III/IV, or American Society Association (ASA) risk III-V, respectively.

Primary outcomes:
measure: Argentina Bowel Complexity and Colonoscopy technical Difficulty score (ABCD)
timeFrame: Six months
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Caecal intubation and colonoscope withdrawal time
timeFrame: During procedure: no more than 30 minutes.
measure: Required anaesthesia dose
timeFrame: During procedure: no more than 30 minutes.
measure: Post-colonoscopy pain
timeFrame: Six months
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Bahía Blanca
country: Argentina
facility: Manuel Valero
state: Buenos Aires
Study officials:
References:
citation: Jia H, Wang L, Luo H, Yao S, Wang X, Zhang L, Huang R, Liu Z, Kang X, Pan Y, Guo X. Difficult colonoscopy score identifies the difficult patients undergoing unsedated colonoscopy. BMC Gastroenterol. 2015 Apr 9;15:46. doi: 10.1186/s12876-015-0273-7.
citation: Fritz CDL, Smith ZL, Elsner J, Hollander T, Early D, Kushnir V. Prolonged Cecal Insertion Time Is Not Associated with Decreased Adenoma Detection When a Longer Withdrawal Time Is Achieved. Dig Dis Sci. 2018 Nov;63(11):3120-3125. doi: 10.1007/s10620-018-5100-x. Epub 2018 May 3.
citation: Allen JI. Quality measures for colonoscopy: where should we be in 2015? Curr Gastroenterol Rep. 2015 Mar;17(3):10. doi: 10.1007/s11894-015-0432-6.
citation: ASGE Technology Committee; Trindade AJ, Lichtenstein DR, Aslanian HR, Bhutani MS, Goodman A, Melson J, Navaneethan U, Pannala R, Parsi MA, Sethi A, Sullivan S, Thosani N, Trikudanathan G, Watson RR, Maple JT. Devices and methods to improve colonoscopy completion (with videos). Gastrointest Endosc. 2018 Mar;87(3):625-634. doi: 10.1016/j.gie.2017.12.011. No abstract available.
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