This Article  • References  • Full text PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in JAMA  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

A. J. Telmos, MD; V. K. Mittal, MD
Mount Carmel Mercy Hospital and Medical Center Detroit

JAMA. 1977;237(25):2718.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.—

With the advent of the fiberoptic colonoscope, colonoscopy has been used more widely as a diagnostic and therapeutic procedure. Colonoscopic polypectomy has almost replaced the transabdominal polypectomy and has substantially reduced the mortality and the morbidity.

Reported complications are primarily those of perforation and hemorrhage at the site of polypectomy. Rare complications include tear of the mesentery and injury to other intraabdominal viscera during manipulation of the colonoscope.

We recently encountered the following case of unrecognized rupture of the spleen following colonoscopy.

Report of a Case.—

A 53-year-old woman who had a prior history of numerous colonic polyps was brought to the emergency room with a history of left upper quadrant pain radiating to the left shoulder. The pain started following an outpatient colonoscopic examination performed three days previously. The colonoscope was advanced to 50 cm. There was some difficulty in advancing the colonoscope through the sigmoid . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Footnotes
Edited by John D. Archer, MD, Senior Editor.

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?