Pros and cons of colonoscopy in management of acute lower gastrointestinal bleeding

Table 1 Comparison of management options for lower gastrointestinal bleeding (%)

Procedure	Diagnosis	Therapy	Early rebleeding	Major complications	Colon preparation	Requires active bleed
Colonoscopy[5-8]	74-100	8-37	0-241	0-2	Yes	No
Sigmoidoscopy[9-11]	About 10	0-20	0	Rare	Minimal	No
Angiography[20,21,26-29]2	23-72	14-100	1-57	0-60	No	Yes
Radionuclide scan[13-15]	40-73	N/A	N/A	Rare	No	Yes
Multi-detector CT scan[16,18,19]	24-94	N/A	N/A	0%-11%	No	Yes

N/A: Not available; CT: Computed tomography.

¹Early rebleeding in patients who had undergone endoscopic therapy for diverticular bleeding; ²Therapy, rebleeding and complications refer to superselective embolization only. It is difficult to determine the frequency of superselective embolization use because most series only report patients who receive therapy.