Second-year resident Dustin Pooler, M.D. collected an RSNA Trainee Research Prize for a project exploring missed colorectal polyps during optical colonoscopy examinations. Professor Perry Pickhardt, M.D., and Professor David H. Kim, M.D. served as co-authors and mentors on the paper.
The purpose of the study was to determine why about 10% of polpys detected during CT colonography (CTC) are “lost” during the follow-up procedure using conventional optical colonoscopy (OC), referred to as an OC false negative.
Pooler discovered that lost polyps were more likely to be in the right colon, and of the 26 polyps missed in OC, six turned out to be advanced lesions. These OC false negatives are more likely to be larger in size, non-flat, and called with high diagnostic confidence compared to CTC false positives.
Pooler will jointly present the research with Pickhardt at RSNA 2014 as part of a session focusing on gastrointestinal imaging. During the same session, Pickhardt is also presenting a lecture on CT colonography screening. We congratulate Pooler, Pickhardt, and Kim on their achievements, and look forward to their presentations this fall.