In patients with chronic diarrhea, colonoscopy may identify inflammatory causes or some occult disease, and also can show a normal mucosa. Serial biopsies of intestinal mucosa can be useful for a differential diagnosis, and to modify the treatment.
To evaluate whether the biopsies performed in patients with chronic diarrhea and a normal colonoscopy contribute to the differential diagnosis and alter the therapeutic approach.
A descriptive, retrospective and cross-sectional study using a computerized database was done. Patients with chronic diarrhea and a normal colonoscopy underwent serial biopsies of the terminal ileum, ascending colon and rectum.
From 398 records, 214 were excluded. Of the 184 patients enrolled, 91 showed histological changes: 40% nonspecific inflammation; 5.18% lymphocytic inflammation, 10.37% eosinophilic inflammation; 39.26% lymphoid hyperplasia; 2.22% collagenous colitis; 2.22% melanosis; and 0.74% pseudomelanose. The sites with the largest number of changes were the terminal ileum and right colon.
Serial biopsies in patients with chronic diarrhea and normal colonoscopy identified changes in almost 50% of cases and 22% of these cases may had modified the treatment after identification of collagenous, lymphocytic and eosinophilic colitis.
Barrett's esophagus is an acquired condition that predisposes to the development of esophageal adenocarcinoma.
The aim of this study was to establish an association between the endoscopic and the histopathological findings regarding differently sized endoscopic columnar epithelial mucosa projections in the low esophagus, under 3.0 cm in the longitudinal extent.
This is a prospective study, including 1262 patients who were submitted to upper gastrointestinal endoscopy in the period from July 2015 to June 2017. The suspicious projections were measured and subdivided into three groups according to the sizes encountered (Group I: <0.99 cm; Group II: 1.0–1.99 cm; and Group III: 2.0–2.99 cm), and biopsies were then performed.
There was a general prevalence of suspicious lesions of 6.42% and of confirmed Barrett's lesions of 1.17%, without a general significant statistical difference among groups. However, from Groups I and II to Group III, the differences were significant, showing that the greater the lesion, the higher the probability of Barrett's esophagus diagnosis. The absolute number of Barrett's lesions was 7, 9, and 6 for Groups I, II, and III, respectively.
The findings led to the conclusion that even projections under 3.0 cm present a similar possibility of evolution to Barrett's esophagus. If, on the one hand, short segments are more prevalent, on the other hand, the long segments have the higher probability of Barrett's esophagus diagnosis, which is why biopsies are required in all suspicious segments.
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