Incidence of gastrointestinal and upper airway malignancies in a tertiary care hospital: A Hospital Based Study from North Eastern India

Aims and Objectives: To find out the incidence and the spectrum of anatomical distributions of gastrointestinal and upper airway malignancies. Materials and Methods: This is a Hospital based prospective observational study carried out in a tertiary hospital over a period of one year. All patients detected to have gastrointestinal and upper airway malignancy by endoscopy were taken up for the study. Results: A total of 116 patients (92 males and 24 females) were studied. There were 113 patients (90 males and 23 females) with upper gastrointestinal/upper airway malignancies and 3 patients (2 males and 1 female) with lower GI malignancy. The age ranges from 28 years to 85 years. The mean age of the patients was 52.21±11.93 years (51.65 years for male and 54.39 years for females). Dysphagia was the most common presenting symptom and 70 of them (61.9%) presented with dysphagia in this study. The common risks factors are tobacco, smoking and chewing of betel nut. In this study 73 cases (64.6%) consumes tobacco, 74 cases (65.4%) smokes, 47 cases (41.5%) consume regular  fermented food  and  smoked meat, 34 cases (30%) takes alcohol. The most common site of upper G.I malignancy is esophagus comprising 68 cases (58.1%) out of 113 cases, followed by Stomach 09 cases (7.6%) and Tongue 03 cases (2.5%). While in the upper airway the sites of involvement were Larynx 22 cases (18.8%), Pharynx 08 cases (6.8%), Pyriform fossa 07 cases (6.1%). Out of a total of 113 cases with upper GI/upper airway malignancy, 4 cases had dual site of involvement. 2 patients had esophagus and pharyngeal carcinoma, 1 patient had esophagus and stomach carcinoma and 1 patient had tongue and laryngeal carcinoma. Conclusion: Endoscopy is one of the standard modality for diagnosis of different diseases of the GI tract. Various gastro intestinal diseases could be diagnosed with greater precision as direct visualization of the different lesions with an additional advantage of sampling of tissues for biopsy from Upper and Lower GI as well as from upper airway lesions.