Knock Yourself Out --Deep Sedation provides better results in colonoscopy, study says

If you are going for your required colonoscopy exam, you might want to ask to be deeply sedated, instead of taking a local anesthetic or "moderate conscious sedation," as the medical community describes it. A new study summarized on Medscape.com reports that deep sedation allowed doctors to better visualize the colon and better inspect for polyps during the procedure. The researchers from the Department of Gastroenterology at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland said they were able to find significantly more polyps with deep sedation than with moderate conscious sedation(MCS), the method currently recommended in American Cancer Society Guidelines. Patients were also more satisfied with deep sedation... preferring to be out of the loop during the probing. The authors suggested during MCS doctors might be concentrating more on keeping the patient comfortable and adeuately sedated, rather than on the procedure.