1 4 • O U T PA T I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E • M A R C H 2 0 1 9
I
f your patient drinks
all her prep the night
before her
colonoscopy screening,
her colon will be fully
cleaned out when she goes
to bed. But the digestive
system never sleeps. Come
morning, the patient's right
colon will be coated with
the bile and mucus the
small intestine emptied into it while she slept. Your physician will have
an obscured view of the colon that makes it difficult — if not impossible
— for him to see all of the polyps during the screening.
The solution: Instruct your patients to split their colonoscopy prep.
They'll take half of the dosage the night before the procedure. They'll
take the other half just 5 hours before the screening. This ensures the
right colon is completely flushed out. The split prep cleans out the
colon and then polishes it for a sparkling, clean-as-a-whistle view.
Of course, that second phase of the prep can be difficult for patients
— especially those with early-morning appointments who have to set
their alarms for 3 a.m. or earlier. But when we explain to them that a
little extra discomfort during the prep phase can help us catch a life-
threatening cancer in the early stages, they're usually onboard.
And most patients heed our advice to split their prep because they
don't want to chance what happens in the event of an insufficient
prep: a repeat screening the very next year.
Frank Kim, MD
Center for Digestive Health & Nutrition
HALF-AND-HALF
Tell Patients to Split Their Colonoscopy Prep
• BOTTOMS UP Drinking half the colonoscopy prep the night before a screen-
ing and the other half 5 hours before the examination flushes out the colon
and gives physicians the best shot at seeing all potentially cancerous polyps.
Frank
Kim,
MD
Moon Township, Pa.
frankkimmd@gmail.com
