The endoscopist – A new quality indicator for colorectal cancer screening?

Background: Colonoscopy is widely accepted as the gold standard for colon cancer prevention. Quality measurement programs concentrate primarily on the details of the procedure itself but not on the factors, that may influence the endoscopist's performance. In order to find an approach to the reasons for these influences, we analysed variations in colonoscopy outcomes performed in a large Austrian screening colonoscopy study between each participating endoscopist. Methods: We thus obtained data from 118 practice – based endoscopists, who performed screening colonoscopies within the scope of the project „Quality C…