Colonoscopy: Early Experience in National Hospital Abuja Nigeria

Abstract

Colonoscopy has become one of the most important modalities in the assessment of the lower gastrointestinal lesions. This study focused on our early experience with colonoscopy documenting the indications and outcome in the first five years of Colonoscopy in National Hospital, Abuja, Nigeria. This was a retrospective analysis of demographic data, indications for colonoscopy, agents used for bowel preparation, type of anaesthesia used, endoscopic findings, and extent of colon intubation from the endoscopy unit register of National Hospital, Abuja between July 2007 and June 2012. Patients whose data were incomplete or procedure abounded were excluded. Two hundred and eleven patients had colonoscopy during the 5 year period. Only 153 patients fulfilled the inclusion criteria and their data analysed. Males were 107 (69.9%) and 46 (30.1%) were females given a male/female ratio of 2.3:1 Age range was 2years to 90years with a Mean of 48.02. The commonest indications were bleeding per rectum (33.3%), haemorrhoids (24.8%) and suspicion of malignancy of the lower gastrointestinal tracts (24.3%). The most common findings on colonoscopy in our study were haemorrhoids (47.7%) and malignancies (24.2%) of various parts of the large bowel. 12.4% of the patients had normal study. Our Ceacal intubation rate was 75.8%. Majority of the lesions were found in the Anorectal region (69.9%) with only 17.7% in the rest of the Colon 24.2% of our findings were malignancies of lower intestinal tract. 97.3% of the malignancies were Adenocarcinoma. 83.8% of the malignancies were located in the left colon. Assessment of lower gastrointestinal symptom is incomplete without colonoscopy. Colonoscopy gives a good yield in well selected patients, it is safe and has low complication rate.

Gastrointestinal Histoplasmosis: A Descriptive Review, 2001–2021

“…The use of colonoscopy in the diagnosis of gastrointestinal conditions is still not routine in most African countries. Where such procedures are carried out, there is a dearth of studies on further specialised testing of biopsied samples for Histoplasma infection as a likely cause of gastrointestinal changes noted in affected individuals [ 128 , 129 , 130 , 131 ]. Prompt targeted evaluation of patients presenting with gastrointestinal disease for histoplasmosis will improve GIH case finding.…”