摘要：Aims and Objective: Gastrointestinal malignancies are among the most lethal of all malignancies and are equally notorious for rapidly progressing to advanced stages even in the absence of serious symptoms, thus leading to delayed diagnoses and dismal prognoses. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence, type, pattern and the histologic characteristics of upper gastrointestinal tumors seen in patients who underwent upper gastrointestinal endoscopy at the Ekiti State University Teaching Hospital, Ado-Ekiti, Nigeria. Materials and Methods: This was a three year cross-sectional study involving 78 patients with suspected upper gastrointestinal tumor referred for upper gastrointestinal endoscopy. The study was conducted from January 2011 to December 2013 at the Ekiti State University Teaching Hospital (EKSUTH), Ado-Ekiti, Nigeria. Relevant clinical information such as age, gender, clinical presentations, smoking history, alcohol use, spices, and consumption of opiates were obtained from the patients. Tissue biopsies were taken from the suspected lesions for histological confirmation and characterization. An ethical clearance for this study was obtained from the EKSUTH Ethical and Research committee and all the patients gave written consent for the study. SPSS version 15.0 (SPSS, Inc., Chicago, Illinois, USA) was applied for statistical analysis using the t-test for quantitative variables and χ2 test for qualitative variables. Differences were considered to be statistically significant if P value was less than 0.05. Results: Seventy eight patients were enrolled into this study comprising 22 females and 56 males. The mean age of the population was 55.75 ± 7.20 years. The presenting symptoms were; abdominal mass in 30.8%, abdominal pain in 29.5%, weight loss in 20.5%, dysphagia in 6.4%, haematemesis in 5.1%, melaena in 5.1% and anaemia in 2.6% of the patients. The risk factors identified in the study included; tobacco use or smoking in 25.6%, alcohol in 19.2%, spices in 14.1%, opiates in 3.8% and combination of the above risk factors in 37.2%. 67.9% of the tumors were located in the stomach, 16.7% in the oesophagus and 15.4% in the first part of the duodenum. Of those located in the stomach, 62.3% were in the antrum while 37.7% were in the corpus. Of the oesophageal tumors, 61.5% were in the mid oesophagus, 30.8% were in the lower oesophagus and 7.8% in the upper oesophagus. Tissue histology showed 70.5% were adenocarcinoma, 26.9% were squamous cell carcinoma, 1.3% lymphoma and 1.3% malignant polyp. This was statistically significant p =< 0.05. Conclusion: In view of the fact that upper GI tumors can rapidly progress to advanced stages in the absence of serious symptoms, gastroduodenoscopy is advocated in patients with signs and symptoms of dyspepsia to avoid delayed diagnosis and improve the disease outcome.
关键词：Gastric cancerOesophageal CancerUpper GI Endoscopy
