Evaluation of the results of gastroscopy and colonoscopy of patients who were admitted to the internal medicine department with the diagnosis of iron deficiency anemia for malignancy examination

Iron deficiency anemia is the most common anemia. Chronic blood loss from the gastrointestinal tract is the most common cause of iron deficiency anemia in men and postmenopausal women. Endoscopy (gastroscopy) and colonoscopy are important examinations regarding anemia etiology. In our study, to determine the gastrointestinal pathologies which can cause iron-deficieny anemia is aimed. Between January 2013 and December 2017, 225 patients who hospitalized in Gaziosmanpaşa University Health Research and Application Center Internal Medicine Department and performed gastroscopy and colonoscopy due to etiology of iron deficieny anemia were analyzed retrospectively. 128 patients were male and 97 were female. Mean age of the patients was 63,38. It is seen that 72 patients underwent endoscopy, 9 patients underwent colonoscopy, 144 patients underwent both endoscopy and colonoscopy. The most common lesions in patients undergoing endoscopy were gastritis and gastric ulcer, respectively. Gastric ulcer was seen in 11.1% of patients, while bulboduodenal ulcer was seen in 1.4%. It is detected that endoscopic biopsies are reported as chronic gastritis in 75,1 % intestinal metaplasia in 16,9 % and positivity of Helicobacter Pylori in 15,4 % of patients. In 2 patients in the esophagus and in 19 patients in the stomach looking malign mass are detected and in 18 patients adenocarcinoma diagnosed. Colonoscopy data showed that the most common lesions were polyp, hemorrhoid and angiodysplasia, respectively. Most often adenomatous polyps were seen. Frequency of inflammatory bowel disease is detected as 2,4%. The colorectal malignancy rate was 4.2%. Regarding analyzed patients data while in lower 50 years age upper gastrointestinal tract malignancy was not detected, ratio of lower gastrointestinal tract malignancy was higher statistically meaningfully by comprasion to older than 50 years age. Finally in this our study, we saw that lesions in gastrointestinal system associate with chronic iron-deficiency which requiring advanced examination. However upper gastrointestinal tract pathologies are more common in iron deficiency anemia, combination of upper and lower endoscopic examination in patients thought gastrointestinal loss is important because of definitive diagnosis. Key words: Endoscopy, colonoscopy, iron deficiency anemia