Letters To The Editor
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2017. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastrointest Endosc. Nov 16, 2017; 9(11): 558-560
Published online Nov 16, 2017. doi: 10.4253/wjge.v9.i11.558
Efficacy of Prucalopride in bowel cleansing before colonoscopy: Results of a pilot study
Vito Domenico Corleto, Giulio Antonelli, Chiara Coluccio, Lucia D’Alba, Emilio di Giulio
Vito Domenico Corleto, Giulio Antonelli, Chiara Coluccio, Emilio di Giulio, Department of Digestive Endoscopy, School of Medicine and Psychology, “Sapienza” University of Rome, Sant’Andrea Hospital, 00189 Rome, Italy
Lucia D’Alba, Gastroenterology and Digestive Endoscopy, San Giovanni-Addolorata Hospital, 00184 Rome, Italy
Author contributions: Corleto VD, D’Alba L and di Giulio E planned the study, performed all the colonoscopies and revised the final version of the paper; Antonelli G and Coluccio C enrolled patients, obtained informed consent, interpreted the data, wrote and revised the paper; all authors approved the final version.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All authors decline any conflict of interest regarding this paper.
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: Vito Domenico Corleto, MD, Department of Digestive Endoscopy, School of Medicine and Psychology, “Sapienza” University of Rome, Sant’Andrea Hospital, Via di Grottarossa 1035, 00189 Rome, Italy. vito.corleto@uniroma1.it
Telephone: +39-6-33776150 Fax: +39-6-33776692
Received: June 9, 2017
Peer-review started: June 13, 2017
First decision: July 10, 2017
Revised: July 11, 2017
Accepted: July 21, 2017
Article in press: July 24, 2017
Published online: November 16, 2017
Abstract

Colonoscopy is a crucial diagnostic instrument for colorectal cancer screening and an adequate bowel preparation is definitely decisive for the success of the procedure. Especially in elderly patients, bowel cleansing is considered a big issue, because it is often poorly tolerated for many reasons (like inability to swallow large volume of liquids or unlikable taste); this can cause a suboptimal preparation that may lead to miss a neoplastic lesion. There is relatively little data about how to improve preparation tolerability. The purpose of our pilot study was to analyze the effect of prucalopride (Resolor®), a highly selective serotonin 5HT4 receptor agonist used for chronic constipation for its ability to stimulate gastrointestinal peristalsis, undertaken the day before colonoscopy, followed by half volume of polyethylene glycol solution. We found that this can be a good and safe method to achieve an adequate and better-tolerated colon cleansing.

Keywords: Bowel cleansing, Colonoscopy, Prucalopride, Screening, Colorectal cancer

Core tip: Efficacy of bowel cleansing is of crucial importance in screening colonoscopies for the prevention and early detection of colorectal cancer. Many categories of patients however cannot tolerate the large volume of liquids that make up standard bowel cleansing regimens. Aim of our pilot study was to test the efficacy of prucalopride, a highly selective 5HT4 receptor agonist that increases bowel movements, in improving bowel cleansing and reducing the necessary volume of liquids.