Radiology now. Starting the double contrast barium meal.

Abstract

Many radiologists must be asking themselves whether they should use a double contrast barium meal (DCBM) as a routine. They may be tempted, as I have been, to make excuses—the added cost or the increased length of the examination. Yet standard barium techniques may miss 20 to 30% of endoscopically demonstrable abnormalities (Cotton, 1973; Laufer et al., 1975) while at its best the DCBM has an accuracy comparable to that of endoscopy (Laufer et al., 1975; Herlinger et al., 1977). If a barium meal fails to show a potentially demonstrable lesion it may be doubly expensive and time consuming because of the unnecessary further investigations which ensue (de Lacey, 1977). A major difficulty in adopting the DCBM is that it is by no means easy to work out a satisfactory and reliable personal routine and to obtain consistent results, in spite of the reviews of the technique which have been published (Kreel et al., 1973; Laufer, 1975; Hunt and Anderson, 1976; de Lacey, 1977). Although not primarily a gastro-enterol...