Upper gastrointestinal polypectomy in our department

Introduction: Polyps of the upper gastrointestinal tract are rarely cause symptoms and usually revealed during gastro-duodenoscopy performed for other reasons. Despite it the diagnosis and correct treatment is important because some polyps have malignant potential. Aims: Our aim was to assess the effectiveness and safety of upper gastrointestinal polypectomy performed in the last year in our department. Patients and methods: We searched for patients who had upper gastrointestinal tract polypectomy in the last year using the Medical Center database (MedWorkS). Results: In the study period we have performed 58 (29 female/29 male) endoscopic polypectomy in the upper gastrointestinal tract. Patients mean age were 66.3 ± 14.8 years. Seventeen patients (29%) were on antiaggregation treatment and 6 (10.3%) received low molecular weight heparin. Most of the patients (59% (n = 34)) were asymptomatic. Large proportion of them (21%, n = 12) showed multiple polyps, as well. The localisation was in the body, antrum, fornix of the stomach and duodenum in 41% (n = 24), 24% (n = 14), 10% (n = 6) and 24% (n = 14), respectively. The mean polyp size was 9.0 ± 8.1 (2 – 30)mm. The complications we had were only 3 (5%) cases of postpolypectomy bleeding. Two (3%) of them needed endoscopic treatment, but none of them need transfusions. Perforation has not occurred. From the evaluable (91%, n = 53) histological sampling we most commonly found hyperplastic polyps (39% (n = 19)) followed by adenoma (26%, n = 14) and fundic gland polyps (25%, n = 13). Summary: In our study we found that about a quarter of the removed upper gastrointestinal polyps were adenoma, that known to be a precancerous condition. However, based on literature data adenomas are associated with synchronous carcinoma in 8 – 59% of the cases, we did not find any cancer at the time of adenoma diagnosis. Therefore patients after removal of upper gastrointestinal adenomas should be followed endoscopically, regularly.