Low adherence to colonoscopy in the screening of first-degree relatives of patients with colorectal cancer.

BACKGROUND: Colonoscopy is one of the methods of choice for screening relatives of patients with colorectal cancer. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the rate of adherence to colonoscopy in first-degree relatives of patients with colorectal cancer and describe the lesions found. METHODS: A prospective, cross-sectional, multicentre, nationwide study was conducted. The study population was composed of first-degree relatives of patients with colorectal cancer selected randomly from the EPICOLON study. Seventy-four index patients were included. These had 342 living first-degree relatives (parents, siblings and children), of whom 281 were interviewed. RESULTS: The adherence rate was 38% (107/281). Adherence was greater in families with a higher degree of familial aggregation for colorectal cancer (88.9% for Amsterdam vs 33.3% for Bethesda and sporadic cancer; p<0.05), an index patient aged under 65 years (60% for patients <65 years vs 32.9% for patients >or=65 years; p<0.05) and an index patient who was female (46.2% for women vs 31% for men; p = 0.28). Adherence was also greater in relatives under 65 years (54% in patients <65 years vs 18% in patients >or=65 years; p = 0.05), in female relatives (49% in female relatives vs 27.3% in male relatives; p<0.05) and in siblings and children (40% in siblings and children vs 13% in parents; p<0.05). Lesions were found in 26% (28/107) of the study population. Nine (8.4%) individuals had a total of 18 advanced lesions. CONCLUSIONS: These results indicate that adherence to colonoscopy in our population of first-degree relatives was low. The adherence was more frequently associated with a higher degree of familial aggregation, a relative age of under 65 years, a sibling or offspring relationship, and female sex.

MRI evaluation of inflammatory activity in Crohn's disease.

OBJECTIVE: We wanted to assess the capability of MRI to quantitatively evaluate the therapeutic response to Crohn's disease (CD) relapse. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: Twenty patients with histologically proven CD were prospectively evaluated with MRI and ileocolonoscopy over a 2-year period. The MRI protocol included axial and coronal T2-weighted and contrast-enhanced T1-weighted sequences. MRI examinations were performed twice, once during an acute relapse of CD and the other at clinical remission. The terminal ileum and colon were divided into six segments/patient, and the endoscopy and histology findings were considered the standard of reference. These were compared on a segmental basis with the quantitative MRI findings regarding wall thickness and contrast enhancement. The results obtained in active and remission CD phases were likewise compared with the findings in 10 control subjects who underwent complete ileocolonoscopy for other reasons and had no pathological findings on ileocolonoscopy. RESULTS: Fifty three of 120 (44.2%) bowel segments showed pathologic changes on endoscopy and histology consistent with CD in active phase. On changing from the active disease phase to clinical remission, a significant decrease was observed in the wall thickness and contrast enhancement of the affected bowel wall. In the active phase of CD, the pathologic bowel segments presented with significantly greater contrast enhancement and wall thickness values compared with the healthy segments of CD and controls. On converting clinically into remission, contrast enhancement tended to normalize, whereas bowel wall thickness remained increased compared with the controls. CONCLUSION: MRI is able to detect pathologic bowel segments in CD, as it allows the measurement of significant variations in wall thickness and contrast enhancement on changing from the active phase of the disease to remission.