Discovering Adverse Events By Phone – the Sweet Spot is 7 Days After ERCP

Identification of adverse events following gastrointestinal endoscopy can be challenging due to patient reticence to present for mild to moderate problems and dispersed follow-up among multiple practitioners and institutions for more significant events. Endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) is associated with greater risk than most endoscopic procedures, yet many adverse events are not detected due to their gradual development hours and days after dismissal from outpatient procedures. 

In this study, the authors compared the rate of adverse events, identified by phone calls using a standardized script, at 1, 7, 14, and 30 days post-ERCP. Patients were also encouraged to report postprocedure symptoms as they occurred. During a 1-year interval, sequential patients were successfully contacted by phone in a high proportion of cases (day 1, 94%; day 7, 93%; day 14, 82%; day 30, 74%). Post-ERCP adverse events were most commonly identified at the day 7 visit (9.8%), compared to the immediate postprocedure time frame (1.9%) and day 1 (3.3%). The yield of further identification of adverse events beyond the first week was lower. This was significant for day 7 versus day 1 for pancreatitis (2% vs 0.5%), bleeding (0.5% vs 0.2%), and infection (0.9% vs 0.5%). Guidance was provided for patient follow-up based on identified events in more than 10% of symptomatic patients.