| Abstract |
Background: Carcinoma of the stomach is a major cause of cancer mortality worldwide. The etiology and risk factors for gastric cancer includes environmental and genetic factors. Methods: The patients who attended surgical OPD and Gastrointestinal and Minimal Access Surgery Unit with features of suspected gastric cancer, such as hematemesis, weight loss, dyspepsia, dysphagia with fullness of stomach, inability to have a full meal with vomiting, anemia, anorexia, stomach lump, gastric outlet obstruction etc were endoscoped by using flexible upper G.I Endoscope. Study variables include population and socio-demography, clinical presentation, endoscopy for location of tumours, appearance, proximal and distal extent of the lesion and histology. Results: The maximum number of patients belonged to the age group 61-70 years, accounting for 33.9% of the patients. . Dyspepsia and epigastric pain were the commonest presenting symptoms accounting 79% (49 patients) in this study. Antrum involvement is the commonest accounting 41.93% (26 patients) followed by prepyloric 29.03% (18 patients), body 19.35% (12 patients) respectively. The majority of the tumour were of well differentiated adenocarcinoma comprising of 37.5% (23 patients) followed by poorly differentiated adenocarcinoma comprising 32.8% (20 patients). Conclusion: Our study showed that carcinoma of stomach was more common in males than in females, affecting mostly in the fifth to seventh decade of life and the lower socio-economic class. Dyspepsia and epigastric pain were the most common presentation. Gastric carcinoma is commonly located in the distal part of stomach involving the antrum and prepyloric region followed by body. |
