Upper Gastrointestinal Endoscopic Outcomes in Patients with Gastrointestinal Symptoms: Retrospective Analysis at a Tertiary Care Hospital

Abstract

Background: Endoscopic procedures are frequently performed to rule out any disease process which eventuates with either a positive or negative outcome. Association of patient demographics, clinical features with endoscopic outcomes are of paramount importance for better understanding and practice of endoscopy. Objectives: This study aimed to determine the frequency of positive endoscopic findings in patients with gastrointestinal symptoms compared to those with negative findings. As a secondary objective, the association between relevant demographics, symptoms, laboratory investigations and procedural outcomes of the participants and positive endoscopic findings were also assessed. Methods: A retrospective analysis of all the patients who underwent esophagogastroduodenoscopy from January 2017 to December 2017 was conducted. A total of 1066 endoscopy records were retrieved and using a convenience sampling technique, relevant data were manually entered to the questionnaires. Records with incomplete or inconsistent data were disregarded as per the exclusion criteria, resulting in 1011 patient records ultimately utilized for the study. All data were entered and analyzed using IBM SPSS 23.0. Results: The study comprised a total of 1011 patients where 52.2% were females and 47.8% males while the mean age of patients was 42.16 ± 15.45. Positive endoscopic findings were observed in 88.1%, where the most common finding was gastritis (49.1%). Approximately 14.5% had positive investigation findings for HBsAg and 23.1% were seropositive for anti-HCV antibody. P-values statistically significant were for age (p = 0.044), hematemesis (p = 0.002), betel quid addiction (p = 0.044), anti-HCV antibody (p = 0.043), HCV-RNA (p = 0.041) and “ H. pylori ” antigen (p = 0.032). Conclusion: Both genders were almost equally included where most patients presented between the 3rd and 5th decades of life. A high incidence of gastritis was noted. Positive endoscopic findings were associated with betel quid addiction and with Hepatitis C infection.