Demographic Characteristics, Clinical Symptoms and Endoscopic Findings in Patients with Gastric Ulcer versus Gastric Cancer

Gastric cancer is the fourth most common cancer and the second most common cause of cancer deaths worldwide. This study was designed to compare demographic characteristics، clinical symptoms and endoscopy findings in patients diagnosed as gastric ulcer versus gastric cancer.

This cross sectional study was carried out on all patients underwent upper endoscopy in Shahid Beheshti hospital of Babol، Iran during the years 2005-2010. Demographic characteristics، BMI، smoking، opium addiction، H. pylori status، clinical symptoms like: dysphasia، weight loss، nausea and vomiting، dyspepsia، anemia، upper gastrointestinal tract bleeding، and anatomic location of lesion in different parts of the stomach were main variables for comparison.

Of these 961 patients، 601 (62. 5%) were men and 359 (37. 4%) were women. The mean age of the patients with gastric ulcer was 53. 9±17. 1 years old and in patients with gastric cancer was 66. 0±14. 3 years old (p<0. 001). The BMI of the patients with gastric ulcer was 24. 97±4. 58 kg/m2 and in patients with gastric cancer was 23. 21±4. 10 kg/m2 (p<0. 001). The most common symptoms in patients with gastric cancer were epigastric pain (44. 8%)، nausea and vomiting (15. 2%)، dysphagia (8. 7%)، weight loss (8. 8%) and upper gastrointestinal tract bleeding (23. 1%).

Clinical findings are not specific for the diagnosis of patients with cancer. Adoption of procedures for screening people in areas with high prevalence of gastric cancer should be a priority for future research.