Minireviews
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2017. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Jun 7, 2017; 23(21): 3784-3796
Published online Jun 7, 2017. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v23.i21.3784
New endoscopes and add-on devices to improve colonoscopy performance
Paraskevas Gkolfakis, Georgios Tziatzios, George D Dimitriadis, Konstantinos Triantafyllou
Paraskevas Gkolfakis, Georgios Tziatzios, George D Dimitriadis, Konstantinos Triantafyllou, Hepatogastroenterology Unit, Second Department of Internal Medicine, Propaedeutic, Research Institute and Diabetes Center, Medical School, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Attikon University General Hospital, 12462 Athens, Greece
Author contributions: Triantafyllou K conceived the idea, revised and finally approved the manuscript; Gkolfakis P and Tziatzios G searched the literature and drafted the manuscript; Dimitriadis GD revised and finally approved the manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflict of interest related to this publication.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Dr. Konstantinos Triantafyllou, Associate Professor, Hepatogastroenterology Unit, Second Department of Internal Medicine, Propaedeutic, Research Institute and Diabetes Center, Medical School, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Attikon University General Hospital, 1 Rimini Street, 12462 Athens, Greece. ktriant@med.uoa.gr
Telephone: +30-210-5832087 Fax: +30-210-5326454
Received: January 27, 2017
Peer-review started: February 6, 2017
First decision: March 16, 2017
Revised: March 24, 2017
Accepted: May 9, 2017
Article in press: May 9, 2017
Published online: June 7, 2017
Abstract

Colonoscopy is the gold standard for colorectal cancer prevention; however, it is still an imperfect modality. Precancerous lesions can be lost during screening examinations, thus increasing the risk of interval cancer. A variety of factors either patient-, or endoscopist dependent or even the procedure itself may contribute to loss of lesions. Sophisticated modalities including advanced technology endoscopes and add-on devices have been developed in an effort to eliminate colonoscopy’s drawbacks and maximize its ability to detect potentially culprit polyps. Novel colonoscopes aim to widen the field of view. They incorporate more than one cameras enabling simultaneous image transmission. In that way the field of view can expand up to 330°. On the other hand a plethora of add-on devices attachable on the standard colonoscope promise to detect lesions in the proximal aspect of colonic folds either by offering a retrograde view of the lumen or by straightening the haustral folds during withdrawal. In this minireview we discuss how these recent advances affect colonoscopy performance by improving its quality indicators (cecal intubation rate, adenoma detection rate) and other metrics (polyp detection rate, adenomas per colonoscopy, polyp/adenoma miss rate) associated with examination’s outcomes.

Keywords: Colonoscopy, Quality indicators, Wide-angle view colonoscopes, Add-on devices

Core tip: Accomplishing high intra-procedural colonoscopy quality indicators has been associated with better patients’ outcomes. Recently, a number of novel wide-angle view endoscopes as well as different add-on devices have been developed aiming to further improve these metrics. They promise detailed inspection of otherwise difficult to examine parts of the colonic mucosa. Herein, we present the current evidence regarding the efficacy of these scopes and devices.