The Colon Club

Yesterday, I had a colonoscopy due to bleeding and chronic diarrhea. When I got home, my doctor’s office called to set up a follow up appointment in 2 weeks. Prior to leaving the hospital, the doctor told my husband (I never saw him) that I needed to have a repeat scope in 3 months because he had to “fry” a polyp that was in a location where it was difficult to remove. He said the colon would cover the polyp every time I breathed. Today, I received the report online and copied it below. After reading it, does it mean no biopsy was taken of the polyp? How can they determine that it was not malignant then? I have been so stressed about this and now I still don’t really have any answers. Any suggestions as to why I should ask at my follow up appointment are appreciated. By the way, I am 41 and had a clear colonoscopy 5 years ago to check as part of a workup to rule out celiac.

7 mm polyp was found in the proximal ascending colon. The polyp was
sessile. Fulguration to ablate the lesion by monopolar probe was
successful. No biopsies or other specimens were collected for this exam.
The exam was otherwise without abnormality on direct and retroflexion
views.
There is no endoscopic evidence of bleeding, diverticula or inflammation
in the entire colon.
cold biopsies taken for histology
Impression:
- The examined portion of the ileum was normal. Biopsied.
- One 7 mm polyp in the proximal ascending colon. Treated with a
monopolar probe. No specimens collected.
- The examination was otherwise normal on direct and retroflexion views.
Estimated Blood Loss: Estimated blood loss: none.
Recommendation:
- Discharge patient to home (ambulatory).
- Repeat colonoscopy in 3 months for surveillance after piecemeal
polypectomy.
Scope Withdrawal Time 0 hours 28 minutes 10 seconds

I am not a doctor so anything I say is coming from a very non medical person.

The best advice I can give you, get a 2nd opinion from another GI doc (or colon rectal surgeon) on the procedure that was done to you. Maybe this is a normal procedure, butt it's new to me. Hopefully someone with more experience can answer your question better.

"No biopsies or other specimens were collected for this exam" . are words I would not like to read regarding my colonoscopy. From personal experience, the many times my surgeon has removed polyps, I generally hear "your good to go, see you in 3 yrs, someone will call you with your pathology result in 2 weeks" . But on a few occasions after removing a polyp, "it's lets wait until pathology report comes back to determine next step" .

So sorry you did not get answers. I hope you do soon.

Lee

Principalpaula wrote: The exam was otherwise without abnormality on direct and retroflexion
views.
cold biopsies taken for histology
Impression:
- The examined portion of the ileum was normal. Biopsied.

Looks like there were two biopsies taken?

He took 2 biopsies of the colon to see if anything comes out of pathology that would cause the diarrhea, but no biopsies were sent out for the polyp that was removed.

Principalpaula wrote: . . . Any suggestions as to why I should ask at my follow up appointment are appreciated. By the way, I am 41 and had a clear colonoscopy 5 years ago to check as part of a workup to rule out celiac.

Ask why the GI doc did what s/he did ? Why was it that s/he was NOT able to get a specimens of the sessile polyp for pathology? If you do not like the answers, pls get a 2nd opinion.

Also find out why they want to repeat in 3 months? What will they be looking for? How long will I have to keep doing this? Again if you do not like the answer, pls gt a 2nd opinion.

Hopefully this GI doc will answer you in plain English, butt if they want to talk about your head (ie you are not following what s/he is saying) pls get that 2nd opinion.

FWIW, because you were scoped 5 years ago, you should be okay, butt again get answers you are comfortable with. This is your life and sometimes you have to be your won advocate.

Again, I hope you get answers soon.

Lee

Principalpaula wrote:He took 2 biopsies of the colon to see if anything comes out of pathology that would cause the diarrhea, but no biopsies were sent out for the polyp that was removed.

Gotcha. I probably can't read and assumed you meant that no biopsies were taken at all!

I do hope you get the answers you're looking for, if they were in there, seems like they'd want to know if that polyp was nefarious or not. I'm not a doctor and have only been dealing with GI/ cancer stuff for a very short time so wtf do I know?

So my follow up colonoscopy is this Wednesday. The doctor said he wasn’t able to biopsy the polyp the first time around because of its location. He was able to burn most of it off. He is hoping to either find that he got it all or is able to finally biopsy it. Has anyone ever had this occur? It is in a bend in the right side of my colon and he said it is tricky. I’m just hoping they can get a biopsy so we actually know whether or not it is ok. Also, are polyps ever malignant? I know they can be benign or pre-cancerous, but do they ever come back as cancer?