Meta-Analysis of the Effect of Bowel Preparation on Adenoma Detection: Early Adenomas Affected Stronger than Advanced Adenomas

Low-quality bowel preparation reduces efficacy of colonoscopy. We aimed to summarize effects of bowel preparation on detection of adenomas, advanced adenomas and colorectal cancer. A systematic literature search was performed regarding detection of colonic lesions after normal and low-quality bowel preparation. Reported bowel preparation quality was transformed to the Aronchick scale with its qualities "excellent", "good", "fair", "poor", and "insufficient" or "optimal" (good/excellent), "suboptimal" (fair/poor/insufficient), "adequate" (good/excellent/fair) and "inadequate" (poor/insufficient). We identified two types of studies: i) Comparative studies, directly comparing lesion detection according to bowel preparation quality, and ii) repeat colonoscopy studies, reporting results of a second colonoscopy after previous low-quality preparation. The detection of early adenomas was reduced with inadequate vs. adequate bowel preparation (Odds Ratio (OR) 0.53, CI: 0.46-0.62, p