European panel on the appropriateness of gastrointestinal endoscopy II guidelines help in selecting and prioritizing patients referred to colonoscopy--a quality control study.

Objective: To use information from the referral letters to assess the appropriateness of colonoscopies in a primary open-access referral center, according to the criteria from the European Panel on the Appropriateness of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (EPAGE) II, and to compare with the first EPAGE guidelines. Second, to evaluate how the appropriateness and other patient- or doctor-related factors affected the diagnostic yield (DY).

Material And Methods: A set of variables; symptoms, referring physician and final diagnosis, for 323 referrals accepted for colonoscopy were recorded prospectively and later on assessed using the EPAGE and EPAGE II criteria, respectively.