Is barium enema examination negligible for the management of colorectal cancer? Comparison with conventional colonoscopy and magnifying colonoscopy.

PURPOSE: The aim of this investigation was to evaluate the clinical value of barium enema (BE) examination for the management of colorectal epithelial neoplasms.

METHODS

We reviewed the colonoscopy records at our institution from 2014 to 2019 and identified cases of endoscopically or surgically resected colorectal epithelial neoplasms evaluated by BE, conventional colonoscopy, magnifying narrow-band imaging colonoscopy (M-NBI), and magnifying chromoendoscopy (MCE). The yield of each modality for the diagnosis of massively submucosal invasive (mSM) colorectal cancer was evaluated by a receiver-operating characteristic analysis including the area under the curve (AUC).

RESULTS

We analyzed the records of 105 patients (17 adenomas, 53 high-grade dysplasias (HGDs), and 35 cancers). Smooth surface, irregularity in depression, and eccentric deformity on the profile view with BE were observed more frequently in mSM cancers than adenomas/HGDs/slightly submucosal invasive cancers (p < 0.01). The AUC of BE was 0.8355, the value of which was not different from the other three modalities (conventional colonoscopy 0.7678; M-NBI 0.7835; MCE 0.8376). Although the specificity, PPV, and accuracy of BE were lower than those of M-NBI and MCE, the sensitivity and NPV of BE were the highest among the four types of examinations.

CONCLUSION

BE is still available and may serve as a supplementary modality for the diagnosis of mSM cancers.