The yield of dysplasia and serrated lesions in a single-centre tertiary inflammatory bowel disease cohort

BACKGROUND: Chromoendoscopy is preferred over high-definition white light endoscopy (HDWLE) for dysplasia surveillance in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) patients, but is more time-consuming to perform and real-world evidence is limited. The prevalence of sessile serrated lesions (SSLs) in IBD patients is also unknown. OBJECTIVE: To determine the yield of polypoid and non-polypoid dysplasia and SSLs in IBD patients undergoing dysplasia surveillance and the associations for these lesions. DESIGN: A retrospective cohort study from a tertiary IBD centre. METHODS: A keyword search of the colonoscopy reporting system was performed. IBD patients with colonic disease that underwent colonoscopy for surveillance between 1 February 2015 and 1 February 2018 were included. Clinical, endoscopic and histopathological outcomes were extracted for the analysis. RESULTS: Of 2114 patients identified, 276 eligible colonoscopies in 126 patients were analysed. The median age at colonoscopy was 51 years (interquartile range: 42–58 years). 71/126 (56%) of colonoscopies were performed in male patients, with 57/126 (45%) having ulcerative colitis, 68/126 (54%) Crohn’s colitis and 1/126 (0.79%) IBD-unspecified. The prevalence for any neoplasia was 75/276 (27%). The prevalence for all serrated lesions was 43/276 (16%). Increased age was a risk factor for finding a neoplastic lesion on both univariate and multivariate analyses. Chromoendoscopy was associated with twice the odds of finding a neoplastic lesion (odds ratio: 1.99, 95% confidence interval: 1.13–3.51, p = 0.02), on multivariate analysis. No factor was associated with an increased risk of finding a serrated lesion. CONCLUSION: Significant neoplastic lesions and serrated lesions were detected in 27% and 16% of colonoscopies performed in IBD patients, respectively, with the highest yield in older patients. Chromoendoscopy significantly increased neoplasia yield compared to HDWLE and still has a robust utility in this pragmatic real-world study.