Technology takes a giant leap forward, or should I say inside, as a new camera bot can crawl your colon to inspect your insides.

Since 2002, statutory health insurances in Germany have offered an endoscopic examination of the colon (colonoscopy) free of charge for all insured persons from the age of 55. Germany was the first country to make nationwide endoscopic screening for bowel cancer a part of its statutory early cancer detection program.

During a colonoscopy, the colon must be distended (expanded) in order to pass the colonoscope through the full length of the colon to the cecum (the cul-de-sac lying below the terminal ileum forming the first part of the large intestine or colon ).

Polypectomy (the surgical removal of polyps by colonoscopy) of small polyps found during CT colonography is costly and unnecessary according to a study performed at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health in Madison, WI.

New research presented at the American College of Gastroenterology's 73rd Annual Scientific Meeting in Orlando emphasizes the importance of adequate bowel preparation prior to colonoscopy, and highlights the remarkable effectiveness of colonoscopy in detecting and removing pre-cancerous polyps, particularly tiny, flat, potentially pre-cancerous growths in the colon known as "sessile serrated adenomas."

Patients who undergo a complete negative colonoscopy have a reduced incidence of colorectal cancer, confirms a study published in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology. However, in the proximal colon, the incidence reduction of colorectal cancer following complete negative colonoscopy differs in magnitude and timing.

If you have ever wanted to get a better look at Charles Barkley’s rear, now you can. The man with perhaps the worst golf swing in the history of the sport will have a colonoscopy on TV, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. Barkley will have a colonoscopy on TV to promote awareness.

Researchers from Korea have found that technically efficient screening and diagnostic colonoscopy generally requires experience with 150 cases or more. The study appears in the April issue of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, the monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal of the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE).

Patient interventions are necessary to achieve higher rates of colorectal cancer screening in low-income and minority patients, according to two studies in the current issue of Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology, the official journal of the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) Institute.

A medical student places a chest tube in a patient lying on an operating table, while another student conducts a colonoscopy. Everything is just as it would be in a real OR or treatment room, except that the patients won’t be harmed or complain if mistakes are made – they’re robots.

African Americans who have multiple first-degree relatives with colon cancer are less likely than whites with affected relatives to undergo recommended screening procedures, according to a report in the March 24 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

At a time when several U.S. health insurers have discontinued payment for use of the sedative propofol during most screening colonoscopies, physicians at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have discovered that an alternative way to administer the drug could both save millions of health care dollars and provide a safer way to deliver optimal pain relief.