A low-residue diet is comparable to a clear liquid diet for colonoscopy prep in regards to prep quality, and is associated with improved patient tolerability, according to a study presented at Digestive Disease Week (DDW) 2021.

“A low residue diet compared to clear liquid diet prior to colonoscopy resulted in improved patient tolerability and willingness to repeat preparation with no differences in preparation quality,” said Nabil El Hage Chehade, MD, University of California Irvine, Irvine, California. “Patients often cite bowel preparation and associated dietary restrictions as the greatest deterrents to having a colonoscopy. As a less restrictive dietary regimen, the low-residue diet may help improve patient participation in colorectal cancer screening programs.”

The researchers performed a literature search for studies that involved adult patients undergoing colonoscopy who either consumed a low-residue diet or clear liquid diet on the day prior to colonoscopy. A total of 18 studies with 5,955 patients were included in the analysis.

The findings suggest that consuming a low-residue diet demonstrated no differences in terms of adequate bowel preparations compared with a clear liquid diet (odds ratio [OR] = 1.22; 95% CI, 0.87-1.71; P = .25).

Using the the Boston Bowel Preparation Scale, the Ottawa Bowel Preparation Scale, and Aronchick Scale, the researchers found that a low-residue diet was non-inferior to a clear liquid diet for each of the bowel prep scales.

The low-residue diet was associated with higher tolerability (OR = 2.21; 95% CI, 1.64-2.98; P P = .0002), with no differences in adenoma detection rate (OR = 1.01; 95% CI, 0.86-1.19; P = .92) or polyp detection rate (OR= 0.87; 95% CI, 0.87-1.04; P = .13).

Digestive Disease Week is cosponsored by the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD), the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA), the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE), and the Society for Surgery of the Alimentary Tract (SSAT).