It is well know that patients with long-standing ulcerative colitis (UC) are at risk for development of colonic neoplastic lesions. Surveillance colonoscopy using dye-based chromoendoscopy (methylene blue) is recommended for detection of dysplasia in these patients.
A study published in Gut has shown that virtual chromoendoscopy by narrow band imaging (NBI) was similar to conventional chromoendoscopy (CE) for detection of colitis-associated neoplasia.
The neoplasia detection rate was not different between CE (21.2%) and NBI (21.5%) (OR 1.02 (95% CI 0.44 to 2.35, p=0.964). The per lesion neoplasia detection was 17.4% for CE and 16.3% for NBI (OR 1.09 (95% CI 0.59 to 1.99, p=0.793). The total procedural time was on average 7 min shorter in the NBI group.
The shorter procedural time for NBI creates a big advantage to become a standard for clinical practice.