Accuracy of Routine Endoscopy Diagnosing Colonic Ischaemia After Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm Repair: A Meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: Colonic ischaemia (CI) is a devastating complication after abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) surgery. The aim of this review was to evaluate the diagnostic test accuracy of routine endoscopy in diagnosing CI after treatment for elective and acute AAA.

PATIENTS AND METHODS: The Pubmed and Embase database searches resulted in 1188 articles. Prospective studies describing routine post-operative colonoscopy or sigmoidoscopy after elective or emergency AAA repair were included. The study quality was assessed with the QUADAS-2 tool. Sensitivity and specificity forest plots were drawn. Diagnostic odds ratios were calculated by a random effect model.

RESULTS: Twelve articles were included consisting of 718 AAA patients of whom 44% were treated electively, 56% ruptured and, 6% by endovascular repair. Of all patients, 20.8% were identified with CI (all grades), and 6.5% of patients had Grade 3 CI. The pooled diagnostic odds ratio for all grades of CI on endoscopy was 26.60 (95% CI 8.86-79.88). The sensitivity and specificity of endoscopy for detection of Grade 3 CI after AAA repair was 0.52 (95% CI, 0.31-0.73) and 0.97 (95% CI 0.95-0.99) respectively. The positive post-test probability is up to 60% in all kinds of AAA patients and 68% in ruptured AAA patients.

CONCLUSION: Routine endoscopy is highly accurate for ruling out CI after AAA repair. Clinicians should be aware that endoscopy is less accurate in diagnosing the presence of the clinically relevant transmural CI. Endoscopy is a safe diagnostic test to use routinely as none of the studies reported adverse events.