“We sought to assess the association between endoscopist characteristics and adenoma detection rates [ADRs] and proximal sessile serrated polyp detection rates [pSSPDRs],” wrote Shashank Sarvepalli, MD, MS, of the Cleveland Clinic along with his colleagues. The findings were reported in JAMA Surgery.
The researchers conducted a retrospective cohort study of 16,089 patients who underwent screening colonoscopies that were conducted by 56 endoscopists. Data were obtained from the Cleveland Clinic health system during 2015-2017.
Dr. Sarvepalli and his colleagues analyzed seven surgeon characteristics, including time since completion of training, number of colonoscopies performed annually, specialty, and practice setting. Subsequently, they examined the relationships between ADRs and pSSPDRs and these parameters.
“Only patients undergoing normal-risk screening colonoscopies and colonoscopies performed by clinicians who performed more than 100 normal-risk screening colonoscopies during the study period were included,” the researchers wrote.
After analysis, the researchers found that ADR was not significantly associated with any of the characteristics, while pSSPDR was significantly associated with number of years in practice (odds ratio per increment of 10 years, 0.86; 95% confidence interval, 0.83-0.89; P less than .001) and annual colonoscopies completed (OR per 50 colonoscopies annually, 1.05; 95% CI, 1.01-1.09; P = .02).
“After adjusting for additional factors, no difference in detection based on endoscopist characteristics was found,” they added.
The researchers acknowledged that a key limitation of the study was the retrospective design. As a result, the team reported that the findings could be prone to exclusions and misreporting.
No funding sources were reported, and the authors reported no conflicts of interest.
SOURCE: Sarvepalli S et al. JAMA Surg. 2019 Apr 17. doi: 10.1001/jamasurg.2019.0564.