Transmission of Hepatitis C Virus During Colonoscopy (Letter)

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1997. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Transmission of Hepatitis C Virus During Colonoscopy (Letter)

New England Journal of Medicine (12/18/97) Vol. 337, No. 25, P. 1849
Bronowicki, Jean-Pierre; Bigard, Marc-Andre

Abstract: In response to a letter to the editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, Jean-Pierre Bronowicki and Marc-Andre Bigard of France's Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Nancy support the author's assertion that gastrointestinal endoscopy is safe when the recommended procedures are followed. Bronowicki and Bigard also note that the probability of a hepatitis C outbreak from endoscopy is unlikely if all proper procedures are followed, considering the fact that the virus itself is enveloped. Still, the authors recognize that the low incidence of reported viral hepatitis C infection after endoscopy could be due to the difficulty of recognizing acute hepatitis C in most cases. Given these issues, the authors explain that their study was intended to help physicians realize the risk of hepatitis C transmission when inadequate disinfection procedures are used for endoscopy. They also attempted to address the risk of cross-infection related to the repeated use of disposable syringes by anesthetists--a common practice, the authors found, despite the publication of recommended infection-control procedures for anesthesiology.

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