Question for Parents of Kids with IBD

[Scipio]

Question: In your experience, what is the youngest age of patient at which GIs will perform a colonoscopy? Thanks for your help.

 

[Maya142]

We've seen toddlers definitely at the hospital. At our hospital it is by age, so babies go first, then toddlers, then kids and so on. Young adults are last, so my daughter is generally the last scope of the day or one of them.

I know we have seen babies as young as a year old but not sure about under that.

I will tag other parents who may have a better idea - Pilgrim, my little penguin, crohnsinct, Farmwife, Malgrave, polly13

 

[my little penguin]

I think it depends on the hospital
The larger university pediatric hospitals definitely do them on toddlers age 1 and up
Some only do a sigmoidoscopy due to clean out risks
They have infant “scopes” for babies with severe disease -not necessarily a first choice but after other options


Per this neonates can have colonoscopy

Skills and experience have advanced to the point that both diagnostic and therapeutic colonoscopies are now routinely performed by most pediatric gastroenterologists. The available equipment permits examination of all pediatric patients including neonates. Successful completion including ileal intubation is a technical challenge among all pediatric patients. An additional level of complexity in pediatric patients is the poor compliance with the necessary bowel cleansing and the difficulties in sedating a frightened or otherwise uncooperative patient.

Pre-procedural preparation should be individualized according to the child’s age, cooperation of the child and the individual experience of the specific center. In infants, adequate preparation can usually be obtained with the use of small-volume enemas and by substituting clear liquids for milk 12 to 24 hours prior to the procedure. Since there is no ideal bowel cleansing regimen in children, various protocols have been compared by Turner et al. Several evidence-based protocols were proposed to optimize preparation and minimize adverse effects [27]. The acute toxicity rate of oral sodium phosphate was estimated to be at most 3/7,320 colonoscopies (0.041%). The safety and effectiveness of large polyethylene glycol-based solutions with electrolytes (PEG-ES), causing osmotic diarrhea, has been demonstrated. Nevertheless, taste and volume might be barriers to efficient colonoscopy preparation. In the combination of polyethylene glycol 3350 with a sports drink nausea/ vomiting were the most reported side effects followed by abdominal pain/cramping and fatigue/weakness [28,29]. Continuous application via a nasogastric tube might improve tolerability in some of the children. Recently, the safety and efficacy of a two-day small volume electrolyte-free preparation (PEG-P) has been reported, which, additionally, was well tolerated and might improve compliance in the near future [30].

From
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3751043/

 

[Farmwife]

Grace was 3 when she was scoped but I've never asked what the youngest was at the hospital.

 

[crohnsinct]

Sorry, I have no experience with this. The closest I come is having seen a 4 year old in the infusion center being treated for IBD and having seen toddlers in the pre op area meeting with our GI but what they were there for IDK.

 

[honey560buddy]

My daughter was 3 for hers and confirmed UC via colonoscopy. She also had an EGD, but that was clear.

 

[amor1218]

My son's first scope was when he was 15 months old. First scope showed acute colitis thru biopsy. He had another 11 months later which showed Crohn's thru biopsy.

 

[Maya142]

We have definitely seen kids about a year old having scopes at our hospital, which is a large university children's hospital, with one of the biggest pediatric IBD centers in the country. I am pretty sure they do infants too if absolutely necessary.

 

[Pilgrim]

Our daughter was 3 for her first scopes.

 

[kimmidwife]

I think the youngest I have heard was about eight months old.

 

[polly13]

Lucy was two when she had her first scope - only done at the ibd centre in ireland