अमूर्त

Gastrointestinal Polypoid Lesions: The Albanian Reality

Gentiana Cekodhima, Ilir Alimehmeti, Altin Cekodhima, Olsion Belishta

Background: Gastrointestinal polypoid lesions are a well-known cause of possible future malignant lesions. Screening for these lesions, especially for colon polyps, has reduced morbidity and mortality from malignant tumors. To our best knowledge, no screening program on gastrointestinal polypoid lesions exists in Albania and no former study has been performed to check the distribution of these lesions. Therefore, our aim was to study the distribution of gastrointestinal polypoid lesions in a symptomatic outpatient population. Methods: This study included five hundred seventy five consecutive patients referred to perform an endoscopic examination, regardless of their specific complains and of their possible diagnosis, to one of the two Endoscopy Centers in Tirana in the period between January 1st 2008 and December 31st 2013. At least one polyp was resected and histologically examined in all included patients. Results: A total of 575 patients, of which 345 males (60.0%), aged 51.9 years (standard deviation 16.97 years), were examined and their data inserted in the statistical analysis. In total, 88 cases were identified with malignant pathologies of which 50 cases (56.8%) were males. No case of malignancy was diagnosed among the nine esophageal specimens, but among the specimens resected from the stomach, small intestine and large intestine, were respectively diagnosed 21 (20.0%), 9 (40.9%) and 58 (13.2%) malignant lesions. Patients with malignant lesions were older (57.4 ± 16.8 years old) in contrast to those with benign lesions (50.5 ± 17.0 years old) (p = 0.004). Conclusion: Our study is the first one to offer figures on the polypoid lesions distribution and characteristics in the Albanian population. Large intestine is the main site where such lesions occur, but anyhow the small intestine presented a larger proportion of malignancy.