Abstract
With the advance of the fiberscope, the duodenofiberscope has become used routinely for the diagnosis of duodenal ulcers. The duodenofiberscope (Olympus JF type B) was used and 212 fiberoptic examinations were carried out in 174 patients who were clinically diagnosed as duodenal ulcers. Endoscopically, 72 of them (41%) were diagnosed as active duodenal ulcers and 36 of them (21%) were diagnosed as healing duodenal ulcers. We discussed clinical symptoms of the patients, comparisons between X-ray findings of the duodenal ulcers and serial endoscopical follow-up examinations of the active or healing duodenal ulcers. The conclusions were as follows: 1. Seventy percent of patients out of 72 who were diagnosed as active duodenal ulcers endoscopically, had epigastric pain as their chief complaints, 10 percent had melena, but 14 percent of them had no symptoms at all. On the other hand, half of the 36 patients who were diagnosed as healing ulcers endoscopically still had sympotoms, most of which were epigastric pains. 2. Compare to the X-ray examinations, more detailed inf ormations such as location, morphorogical characteristics such as active or healing, single, multiple or linear, had been obtained by the duodenofiberscope. 3. Twenty percent of patients who had duodenal ulcer endoscopically had no deformity of duodenal bulb on X-ray examinations. In the early stage of the multiple duodenal ulcer there was no deformity of the bulb noted. 4. The round or irregular shape of duodenal ulcers had tendency to repair easily. On the other hand, linear ulcers remained unchanged or recurred in a few month.
